The Texas Ten Commandments law in public schools, Senate Bill 10, took effect September 1, 2025, and requires every public elementary and secondary classroom in the state to display a poster of the Ten Commandments. Federal judges have blocked enforcement in roughly thirty named school districts, but a divided Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the law constitutional in January 2026, and a third lawsuit remains pending. Whether the poster is on the wall in your child’s classroom right now depends on which district you live in.
What SB 10 Requires in Every Classroom
Every public elementary and secondary school in Texas must display a “durable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments” in a conspicuous place in each classroom.1Texas Legislature Online. Texas Senate Bill 10 The requirement began with the 2025–2026 school year. It is not optional and school boards cannot vote to opt out. Attorney General Ken Paxton directed all Texas districts to comply once the law’s effective date arrived.2Texas Attorney General. Attorney General Ken Paxton Instructs Texas Schools to Display Ten Commandments in Accordance with Texas Law
An earlier version, Senate Bill 1515, cleared the Texas Senate in 2023 but died in the House. Lawmakers brought it back as SB 10 during the 89th legislative session, and it passed both chambers. The two bills are nearly identical, with one notable change: SB 10 lets districts use their own funds to buy the posters if they choose.
Poster Size, Text, and What Cannot Be Added
The law sets exact physical specifications. Each poster or framed copy must be at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall, with text in a size and typeface legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.1Texas Legislature Online. Texas Senate Bill 10 These are not small plaques. A student at the back of the room has to be able to read it.
The exact wording is prescribed by the statute. The text begins with “I AM the LORD thy God” and runs through all ten commandments in traditional King James–style language, ending with “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”1Texas Legislature Online. Texas Senate Bill 10 Schools cannot substitute a different translation or a paraphrase. The poster must contain only the prescribed text. No logos, no commentary, no branding of any kind.
How Schools Pay for the Posters
If a school does not already have compliant posters in every classroom, it must accept any privately donated poster or framed copy that meets the size, text, and content requirements.1Texas Legislature Online. Texas Senate Bill 10 Donations that include extra markings, political messages, or commercial branding must be rejected.
Districts also have the option, but not the obligation, to purchase compliant posters with district funds.1Texas Legislature Online. Texas Senate Bill 10 A school board could vote to buy displays outright with taxpayer money or simply wait for donors. Organized donation campaigns are already underway in many Texas communities.
Where the Law Stands in Court
The mandate drew immediate legal challenges. In Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, sixteen families argued that the law amounted to state promotion of one interpretation of Christianity over other faiths. A federal district judge agreed and blocked enforcement in more than a dozen named districts, including Alamo Heights, Austin, Houston, and Plano. A second lawsuit resulted in another federal judge blocking fourteen additional districts.
On appeal, a sharply divided en banc Fifth Circuit ruled 9–8 in January 2026 that SB 10 does not violate the Constitution. The majority concluded that the Supreme Court’s 1980 decision in Stone v. Graham, which struck down a nearly identical Kentucky law, is no longer good law in light of more recent Supreme Court decisions. A third lawsuit seeking to block all Texas schools from complying is still pending as of early 2026, and the losing side at the Fifth Circuit is expected to seek Supreme Court review.
The practical result right now: in districts named in the injunctions, the posters may not go up while the orders are in place. In districts not covered by any injunction, schools are expected to comply.
Why This Fight Is Not Over
In 1980, the Supreme Court decided Stone v. Graham, striking down a Kentucky statute that required the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. The Court held the law had “no secular legislative purpose” and that private funding of the displays did not save it, because “the mere posting of the copies under the auspices of the legislature provides the official support of the State…Government that the Establishment Clause prohibits.”3Justia Law. Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980) For 45 years, that case was treated as settled. The Texas law is almost indistinguishable from the Kentucky one.
What changed is the test courts use. Stone was decided under the Lemon test, which asked whether a law had a secular purpose, whether it advanced or inhibited religion, and whether it created excessive entanglement between government and religion. In 2022, in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court declared that Lemon and its offshoots are “no longer the governing legal standard” and directed courts to interpret the Establishment Clause by “reference to historical practices and understandings.”4Supreme Court of the United States. Kennedy v. Bremerton School District
Texas lawmakers and the Fifth Circuit majority argue that under this history-and-tradition approach, the Ten Commandments have long been recognized as part of American legal heritage, and that Stone‘s reasoning collapses once its underlying test is gone. The eight dissenting Fifth Circuit judges disagreed, arguing that Kennedy replaced the Lemon test but did not overrule Stone, and that no historical tradition supports government-mandated religious displays in classrooms where students are required to be present. The Supreme Court has not resolved the question, so the constitutional status of SB 10 is genuinely unsettled.
What Parents and Students Can and Cannot Do
SB 10 contains no opt-out provision. There is no mechanism to excuse a student from a classroom because of the display, and no process for a parent to request alternative placement. This is different from how schools typically handle objections to specific curriculum content or prayer activities. If the poster is on the wall in your child’s classroom, your child will see it every day they are in that room.
Parents who object have essentially two avenues. The first is participation in the ongoing litigation, either by joining a pending suit or by filing a new challenge. The second is contacting local district leadership, though school boards have limited authority here. A board cannot vote to opt out where the law is in effect, but it also cannot be forced to spend district money on the posters, so a board can decline to purchase them and wait on donations.
For families whose district is covered by a federal injunction, the display requirement is paused for now. For families in districts not named in any injunction, schools are expected to comply with SB 10 as written. The map of which districts are which will keep shifting as new cases are filed and existing ones move through appeal, and a Supreme Court ruling at some point in the next year or two is the most likely path to a final answer.