On April 21, 2026, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, upheld Senate Bill 10, requiring Texas public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom using a specific format and size. Parents from multiple religious backgrounds sued several Texas school districts, arguing the law violated both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. A federal district court had blocked the law before it took effect.
The Fifth Circuit reversed that injunction and upheld the Texas law. The majority concluded that older Supreme Court precedent such as Stone v. Graham (1980), which struck down a similar Kentucky law, depended on the now-abandoned Lemon v. Kurtzman test. According to the Fifth Circuit, modern Establishment Clause analysis should focus on whether a law resembles the kinds of religious establishments that existed at the founding of the United States—such as state churches, compulsory worship, religious taxes, punishment of dissenters, or government control of doctrine. The court held that merely posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms did not resemble those historic establishments.
The court also rejected the parents’ Free Exercise arguments. It distinguished the recent Supreme Court case Mahmoud v. Taylor, where schools allegedly used curriculum materials to actively challenge students’ religious beliefs. Here, the Fifth Circuit said the Texas statute only required a passive display on the wall. Students were not required to recite, study, affirm, or worship according to the Ten Commandments, and teachers were not authorized to proselytize students. Because no substantial burden on religious exercise was shown, those claims were dismissed as well.
The practical result is that the preliminary injunction was vacated and judgment rendered for the school districts, allowing the Texas law to move forward unless further stayed or reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States. The opinion signals a major shift away from older church-state separation frameworks toward a historical-tradition approach. It may invite eventual Supreme Court review.
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