Texas’ law requiring schools to display the Ten Commandments is again under scrutiny from secular activists, who are suing more districts, including several across the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Fifteen families filed suit on September 22, targeting 14 districts in Cribbs Ringer v. Comal ISD. Secular legal groups, including the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation, are representing the plaintiffs, according to a press release.
Defendants include Comal ISD, Conroe ISD, Flour Bluff ISD, Georgetown ISD, and McAllen ISD. Across the DFW metroplex, the suit also targets the following school districts: Arlington ISD, Azle ISD, Fort Worth ISD, Frisco ISD, Lovejoy ISD, Mansfield ISD, McKinney ISD, Northwest ISD, and Rockwall ISD.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 10 in June, requiring “every classroom in Texas public schools” to display the 10 Commandments, as The Dallas Express previously reported. It did not force schools to buy the displays, but allowed them to do so. They must also “accept and display” any privately donated posters that meet the law’s standards.
“Faith and freedom are the foundation of our nation,” Abbott posted on X at the time. “If anyone sues, we’ll win that battle.”
The new suit cites judicial precedent and a recent injunction to claim the law violates the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion.
“Despite these precedents, the Defendant School Districts have pressed forward with actually posting S.B. 10 displays in classrooms, or have confirmed they will do so shortly,” the suit reads. “The displays will pressure students, including the minor-child Plaintiffs, into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture.”
Lutheran Rev. Kristin Klade – a plaintiff who organizes a “pub church” in Fort Worth – claimed in the release that schools posting the 10 Commandments would interfere with raising her children.
“I address questions about God and faith with great care, and I emphatically reject the notion that the state would do this for me,” she said.
Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of FFRF, added that her group would continue litigation. “The secular foundation of our country’s public school system is nonnegotiable,” she said.
Initial Challenges
Secular activists previously sued in July, claiming in Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights ISD that the law violates “separation of church and state,” as The Dallas Express reported.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery issued an injunction in August, temporarily banning districts named in the suit – including Plano ISD – from complying with the law. In the ruling, he cited Kenny Chesney and compared Texas’ law to Nazi Germany.
Soon after the injunction, ACLU Texas wrote to districts across the state, warning them not to comply with the 10 Commandments law.
“Even though your district is not a party to the ongoing lawsuit, all school districts have an independent obligation to respect students’ and families’ constitutional rights,” the letter reads. “Because the U.S. Constitution supersedes state law, public-school officials may not comply with S.B. 10.”
Days later, however, Attorney General Ken Paxton told districts otherwise.
Paxton said that unless explicitly named in the suit, districts must comply with the law by September 1, as The Dallas Express reported at the time.
“Schools not enjoined by ongoing litigation must abide by S.B. 10 and display the 10 Commandments,” Paxton said at the time. “From the beginning, the 10 Commandments have been irrevocably intertwined with America’s legal, moral, and historical heritage.”