OPINION:
One of the first lessons we teach children is that rules matter. Rules guide behavior, protect rights and help us live together in harmony. Texas’ new law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms reflects that principle. Yet a lawsuit brought by my cherished college friend Rabbi Mara Nathan argues that the law violates the Constitution. With all respect to Rabbi Nathan, and to the district court that granted a preliminary injunction last month temporarily blocking the law, this challenge rests on shaky ground.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton noted that the court’s order does not apply statewide, and he directed unaffected school districts to comply with the law. Expedited review of the case by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc, along with a similar lawsuit in Louisiana, can settle things once and for all because the law is on Mr. Paxton’s side.
As I explained with professor Mark David Hall in a short video and an amicus brief supporting Louisiana’s similar statute, the Founders did not understand the establishment clause to scrub religion from public life. Rather, the clause was designed to prevent coercion: no national church, no forced conformity, no penalties for dissent. A passive display of the Ten Commandments, hanging silently on a classroom wall, does not establish a church or compel a creed. It is acknowledgment, not imposition.
This distinction was underscored in Mahmoud v. Taylor, where the Supreme Court held that schools overstep when they override parents and require young children to absorb messages that directly contradict religious teachings. That is genuine coercion. By contrast, a wall display that students are free to ignore compels nothing.
Opponents often cite Stone v. Graham, which struck down a Kentucky Ten Commandments posting law in 1980, relying on the now-discredited Lemon v. Kurtzman test. That framework was officially abandoned in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, where Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote that the Constitution “was never meant to require the government to exhibit a callous indifference to religion.” Today’s court looks instead to history, tradition, and the presence or absence of government coercion. On those terms, Texas’ law stands easily.
Nevertheless, a federal district court in San Antonio issued a preliminary injunction last month halting the law, reasoning that even a passive display is coercive. The opinion begins with a dramatic heading, “In the Beginning …” and ends with a pithy prayer: “For those who disagree with the Court’s decision and who would do so with threats, vulgarities and violence, Grace and Peace unto you. May humankind of all faiths, beliefs and non-beliefs be reconciled one to another. Amen.”
Rhetoric aside, the district court badly misreads history and precedent. Passive presence is not coercion. Recognizing religion’s role in civic life does not violate the First Amendment; it affirms it. Mr. Paxton has vowed to appeal, and the 5th Circuit, already weighing whether to rehear the Louisiana case en banc, will now have the chance to correct this misstep.
Our nation’s history supports that conclusion. The same First Congress that drafted the First Amendment also appointed chaplains, declared national days of thanksgiving and reauthorized the Northwest Ordinance, which declared that “religion, morality, and knowledge” are “necessary to good government.” The Founders drew a sharp line between coercion and recognition and acknowledged religion’s vital role in public life.
The Ten Commandments themselves testify to that civic heritage. Honoring parents, respecting life, and rejecting theft, adultery and false witness are shared moral principles, vital across Judaism, Christianity, Islam and even secular societies. A classroom display does not force faith; it highlights a source of enduring moral wisdom.
The Supreme Court recognized this in Van Orden v. Perry, upholding a Ten Commandments monument at the Texas Capitol. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist described its “undeniable historical meaning.” If such words may stand peacefully under the Texas sky, surely they may also hang quietly in a classroom.
To insist otherwise is to treat religion as a contaminant rather than a contributor to civic life. That is not neutrality; it is hostility. The Constitution requires no such purge.
By permitting a quiet display, Texas affirms that religious expression has a place in the public square. At a moment when civic discourse is fractured and moral consensus elusive, perhaps a simple set of words on a classroom wall can help our students see that the pursuit of justice, truth and respect for one another transcends our contemporary disputes.
• Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is director of the Conscience Project.
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