NASHVILLE (BP) – As students head back to the classroom this month, they’re expected to be met by Ten Commandment posters in Alabama, Louisiana and Texas as legal challenges against the mandated displays persist.
As recently as July 30, three mothers in Houston challenged Texas’ mandated displays, and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has vowed to contest a federal judge’s ruling blocking displays in classrooms there.
Mandated displays have either never made it to the legislative floor or failed in the majority of states where lawmakers have introduced such bills, most recently South Carolina, West Virginia and Indiana. Since 2025, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota lawmakers have also rejected such measures.
Tennessee lawmakers approved optional displays in prominent locations in public and charter schools beginning this year, after an amendment to mandate the Scripture posting failed. There, a specified version of the Ten Commandments may be displayed in schools as long as they are accompanied by certain historical documents, according to the law, including “the first sentence of the second paragraph of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, and the preamble to the United States Constitution in a prominent location in a school building in order to educate students on the documents’ historical significance and how the documents shaped the common cultural heritage of the LEA or public charter school, this state, and the United States of America.”
Tennessee lawmakers rejected a Senate amendment to legislation that would have mandated the displays, citing concerns based on previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
In a related matter, mandates to include Bible stories in school curricula, approved in Utah and Texas, won’t take effect until 2028 and 2030, respectively, with an opt-out option in Texas. Legal challenges are also expected.
In the latest legal challenge to the Ten Commandments mandated displays, Texas parents are using in their defense state laws instead of the U.S. Constitution, namely the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act and a parental rights amendment to the Texas Constitution voters approved in 2025, Religion News Service reported.
None of the named Texas plaintiffs are described as Christian. They are Emily Roth, raising her children without religion; Sanjam Kaur Sohal, a Sikh; and Audrey Rosa Nath, incorporating a mix of several religions including Jainism, Hinduism, Judaism and Quaker in her parenting.
“It teaches students, and their teachers, that exclusion is acceptable, maybe even preferred,” plaintiff Roth said in a press release. “That is not a lesson I want my children learning from the state of Texas.”
A previous challenged to the Texas mandate, based on the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, failed on appeal in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court in a ruling that also permitted Louisiana displays.
The issue is expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, as Louisiana parents have the option of filing another legal challenge after the posters are displayed there. In the most recent legal ruling, the U.S. Fifth Circuit voted 12-6 to vacate an earlier and preliminary injunction that favored the parents, saying the parents filed their lawsuit prematurely and leaving open the door for parents a file a new challenge.
