{"id":3001,"date":"2025-08-26T22:18:29","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T02:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/2025\/08\/federal-court-blocks-texas-law-requiring-ten-commandments-in-every-public-school-classroom\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T22:18:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T02:18:29","slug":"federal-court-blocks-texas-law-requiring-ten-commandments-in-every-public-school-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3001","title":{"rendered":"Federal Court Blocks Texas Law Requiring Ten Commandments in Every Public School Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In a victory for religious freedom and church-state separation, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction<\/a> today in Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District<\/em>, prohibiting the school district defendants from implementing a Texas law that requires all public elementary and secondary schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.<\/p>\n

In his decision U.S. District Court Judge Fred Biery held that Texas Senate Bill 10, which is due to take effect on Sept. 1, likely violates both the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

Ruling that the law would likely lead to unconstitutional religious coercion of the child plaintiffs and interfere with their parents\u2019 rights to direct their children\u2019s religious education, Judge Biery explained:<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]he displays are likely to pressure the child-Plaintiffs into religious observance, meditation on, veneration, and adoption of the State\u2019s favored religious scripture, and into suppressing expression of their own religious or nonreligious background and beliefs while at school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a rabbi and public school parent, I welcome this ruling,\u201d said plaintiff Rabbi Mara Nathan. <\/strong> \u201cChildren\u2019s religious beliefs should be instilled by parents and faith communities, not politicians and public schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic schools are not Sunday schools,\u201d said Heather L. Weaver, senior counsel for the ACLU\u2019s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. <\/strong>\u201cToday\u2019s decision ensures that our clients\u2019 schools will remain spaces where all students, regardless of their faith, feel welcomed and can learn without worrying that they do not live up to the state\u2019s preferred religious beliefs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s ruling is a major win that protects the constitutional right to religious freedom for Texas families of all backgrounds,\u201d said Tommy Buser-Clancy, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas.<\/strong> \u201cThe court affirmed what we have long said: Public schools are for educating, not evangelizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s decision will ensure that Texas families \u2013 not politicians or public-school officials \u2013 get to decide how and when their children engage with religion,\u201d said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State<\/strong>. \u201cIt sends a third strong and resounding message across the country that the government respects the religious freedom of every student in our public schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

“It is gratifying to see the federal court honoring our First Amendment, with the wisdom to understand how wrong it would be to impose bible edicts on public students as young as kindergartners,\u201d says Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.<\/strong> \u201cReligious instruction must be left to parents, not the state, which has no business telling anyone how many gods to have, which gods to have or whether to have any gods at all.”<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are heartened by today\u2019s well-reasoned decision that underscores a foundational principle of our nation: the government cannot impose religious doctrine,\u201d said Jon Youngwood, Co-Chair of Simpson Thacher\u2019s Litigation Department.<\/strong> \u201cThis ruling is critical to protecting the First Amendment rights of students and families to make their own determinations as to whether and how they engage with religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The preliminary injunction, issued by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, prohibits the school-district defendants from \u201cdisplaying the Ten Commandments pursuant to S.B. 10.\u201d<\/p>\n

Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel, the plaintiffs in Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District<\/em><\/a> are a group of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious families, including clergy, with children in public schools.<\/p>\n

The ruling can be found online here: https:\/\/assets.aclu.org\/live\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Texas-SB-10-Ruling.pdf<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a victory for religious freedom and church-state separation, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction today in Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, prohibiting the school district defendants from implementing a Texas law that requires all public elementary and secondary schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. In his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[742],"class_list":["post-3001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ciencia-y-tecnologia","tag-vr-news-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}