A federal appeals court, on Jan. 20, 2026, is set to hear Texas’ arguments against a ruling that blocked nearly a dozen school districts from displaying posters of the Ten Commandments.
The 17 active judges for the Fifth Circuit will hear both the Texas and similar Louisiana case after both states passed the requirement to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
A federal judge in August found Texas’ Ten Commandments law unconstitutional and temporarily blocked it from taking full effect, following an initial lawsuit against 11 school districts. The complaint was brought by 16 families of various religious and nonreligious backgrounds, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and a coalition of religious freedom organizations. The civil rights groups later sued 14 more districts.
In his August decision, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery concluded that the law favors Christianity over other faiths, is not neutral with respect to religion and is likely to interfere with families’ “exercise of their sincere religious or nonreligious beliefs in substantial ways.”
Texas appealed the ruling, sending the case to the same court where a threejudge panel recently blocked Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law from taking effect. The state requested that all active judges on the court hear the case, as opposed to a three- judge panel. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the court to take up Texas’ and Louisiana’s appeals together, which it granted in late October.
Texas’ Ten Commandments law was one of the latest measures passed by the Texas legislature earlier this year. Critics say the law injects religion into the state’s public schools, attended by roughly 5.5 million children.
The ruling blocking the law from taking full effect applied to the following school districts: Alamo Heights, North East, Lackland, Northside, Austin, Lake Travis, Dripping Springs, Houston, Fort Bend, Cypress-Fairbanks and Plano.
The most recent lawsuits involve the following districts: Comal, Georgetown, Conroe, Flour Bluff, Fort Worth, Arlington, McKinney, Frisco, Northwest, Azle, Rockwall, Lovejoy, Mansfield, McAllen.
Attorney William Farrell from the attorney general’s office described SB 10’s requirement as a “passive display on the wall” that does not rise to the level of coercion because students can choose to ignore the posters if they wish. The law would “probably cross the line,” he said, if it also incorporated the Ten Commandments into lessons or assignments — but that is not the case.
Farrell said the posters must only go up if they are donated to the school and the law does not specify what would happen if districts choose not to comply.
“SB 10 doesn’t restrict anything,” Farrell said. “It doesn’t exclude anything or specifically require any participation by students.”