The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Texas law requiring every public school classroom in the state to display a copy of the Ten Commandments, reversing a lower court order that had blocked the requirement and handing religious liberty advocates one of their biggest wins in years.

The ruling, decided by a razor-thin 9-to-8 vote of the full appeals court, found that the Texas statute does not violate the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. CBN News reported that the court's majority concluded the displays pass constitutional muster because students are not compelled to engage with the text in any devotional way.

The decision reverses a 2025 ruling that had said the law failed to demonstrate a sufficient historical tradition of posting the Commandments in classrooms. That earlier order had blocked about a dozen Texas school districts from putting up the displays. Now the law stands, and public schools and open-enrollment charter schools statewide must post a "conspicuous" copy, with no additional text permitted on the poster.

What the court said, and why it matters

Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, writing for the majority, drew a sharp line between passive display and government-imposed religion. The Washington Times reported Duncan wrote that the Texas law "looks nothing like a historical religious establishment" and that the lower court erred in blocking it.

"Because the Texas law has none of the elements of a founding-era establishment of religion, the district court erred in ruling that the law violates the Establishment Clause."

The majority also noted that modern Supreme Court doctrine has moved away from the old "Lemon" test, the framework that had been central to earlier rulings striking down similar laws. In its place, the court applied the "history and tradition" standard set by the Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the 2022 case involving a high school football coach who prayed on the field after games.

That shift in legal terrain is exactly what Texas lawmakers anticipated when they passed the bill. State Sen. Phil King, the Weatherford Republican who sponsored SB 10, wrote in his bill analysis that the Supreme Court had opened the door.

"For 200 years, the Ten Commandments were displayed in public buildings and classrooms across America. The Court has... provided a test that considers whether a governmental display of religious content comports with America's history and tradition. Now that the legal landscape has changed, it is time for Texas to pass SB 10 and restore the history and tradition of the Ten Commandments in our state and our nation."

The American Civil Liberties Union and allied groups had argued the law breaches the wall between church and state. The court disagreed. Its majority opinion stated plainly that mere exposure to religious content does not amount to a constitutional violation.

"No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin."

That single sentence may prove to be the most consequential line in the ruling. It draws a clear distinction between coercion and acknowledgment, and it does so in language that could travel well beyond Texas.

Supporters call it a landmark religious liberty win

Kelly Shackelford, president, CEO, and chief counsel of First Liberty Institute, praised the decision in forceful terms.

"As the Fifth Circuit correctly concluded, posting the Ten Commandments in schools clearly meets the Kennedy 'history and tradition' test. The Ten Commandments have been a part of our nation's history and tradition; banning them from schools because they are religious is not justified by the Constitution and would undermine a comprehensive education for America's students. We applaud the Fifth Circuit for upholding the Constitution."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling "a major victory for Texas and our moral values," the New York Post reported. Paxton added that the Ten Commandments "have had a profound impact on our nation, and it's important that students learn from them every single day."

Jonathan Saenz, president and attorney for Texas Values, went further. Fox News reported Saenz's reaction:

"This is one of the most important religious liberty victories for Texas in our glorious history. Today's ruling confirms that our state can honor the moral heritage that undergirds our legal system without violating the First Amendment."

The enthusiasm is understandable. For decades, legal precedent ran in one direction, toward scrubbing any trace of religious heritage from public institutions. The Lemon v. Kurtzman framework, established in 1971, gave courts a three-pronged test that challengers routinely used to strike down religious displays. The Supreme Court's shift in Kennedy changed the calculus, and the Fifth Circuit's ruling is the most significant application of that new standard to a state classroom-display law.

The broader momentum behind the Fifth Circuit's Ten Commandments decision extends beyond the Lone Star State. Similar laws are advancing in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama, and this ruling strengthens the legal footing for all of them.

Texas already moving on faith in the classroom

The Ten Commandments display law is not the only front where Texas has pushed back against the secularization of public education. In 2024, the state approved an optional Bible-infused curriculum for elementary schools. The Texas State Board of Education signed off on the "Bluebonnet" textbook, which provides course material for kindergarten through fifth-grade students.

That curriculum is voluntary, school districts choose whether to adopt it. But it signals a broader willingness in Texas to treat the Bible as a legitimate part of American history and culture rather than a prohibited artifact. The Department of Education's recent guidance requiring public schools to allow prayer reflects a similar trend at the federal level.

Taken together, the pattern is clear. State legislatures are passing laws. Courts are upholding them. And the old legal regime that treated any public acknowledgment of faith as a constitutional crisis is losing ground.

The appeals court review of both Louisiana and Texas mandates earlier in this legal cycle foreshadowed the outcome. The question was never whether the Ten Commandments have historical significance, that is beyond serious dispute. The question was whether the Constitution forbids schoolchildren from seeing them on a classroom wall. The Fifth Circuit said it does not.

The road ahead: likely Supreme Court bound

The 9-to-8 margin suggests the legal fight is far from over. The Associated Press reported the ruling is widely expected to head to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices would face the question squarely for the first time under the Kennedy framework.

The ACLU and its allies will almost certainly seek review. They have argued from the start that requiring the Ten Commandments in every classroom amounts to government endorsement of religion. The Fifth Circuit rejected that argument, but a one-vote margin on a 17-judge panel leaves room for the Supreme Court to weigh in.

If the high court takes the case, it will test whether the "history and tradition" standard announced in Kennedy is durable enough to protect longstanding religious displays, or whether it was a narrower holding than supporters believe. The broader effort by the administration to protect prayer in public schools suggests the political environment has shifted in favor of religious expression, but the legal question will ultimately rest on constitutional text and precedent.

Meanwhile, the practical effect is immediate. Texas schools must now comply with SB 10. Donated posters bearing the Ten Commandments, and nothing else, will go up in classrooms across the state. At Lehman High School in Kyle, Texas, Ten Commandments and Bill of Rights posters were already displayed in a classroom as of October 2025.

The administration's broader embrace of religious liberty, from White House prayer services to a dedicated office for faith-based initiatives, provides a political backdrop that makes this ruling feel less like an outlier and more like a turning point.

What the opposition got wrong

The ACLU's core argument rested on a premise that the Fifth Circuit flatly rejected: that displaying a religious text in a public school is, by itself, an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The majority found that passive display, where no student is asked to read, recite, or affirm the text, does not cross the constitutional line.

The dissent, backed by eight judges, presumably disagreed. But the majority's reasoning tracks the direction the Supreme Court has been heading since Kennedy: away from the reflexive hostility to public religious expression that defined Establishment Clause jurisprudence for half a century, and toward a framework that asks whether a practice has deep roots in American tradition.

The Ten Commandments plainly do. They appear on the doors of the Supreme Court building itself. They shaped the legal codes of the colonies and the early republic. Sen. King's bill analysis noted they were displayed in public buildings and classrooms for 200 years before courts began ordering them removed.

None of that history disappeared because the ACLU filed a lawsuit. The Fifth Circuit simply acknowledged what was always true.

For decades, the legal establishment treated the mere sight of the Ten Commandments in a public school as a constitutional emergency. The Fifth Circuit just told Texas, and the rest of the country, that the Constitution says no such thing.