Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched investigations into 29 public school districts across the state, including Amarillo ISD and Lubbock ISD, to determine whether they are complying with a new state law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
The investigations come after the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled last month that Texas Senate Bill 10 could take effect. The law, signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in June, requires every public school classroom in the state to display a copy of the Christian Ten Commandments.
According to Paxton’s office, the attorney general is demanding documents from districts to confirm whether they have posted the required displays and whether school boards have voted on setting aside time for prayer under a separate law, Senate Bill 11.
In a statement announcing the investigations, Paxton said, “Texas schools districts must comply with Texas law by displaying the Ten Commandments and taking a school board vote regarding the implementation of prayer time in schools. I will never stop defending our students’ religious freedom and the moral foundation of our nation.”
The document requests were sent to districts across Texas, including those in Amarillo, Lubbock, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, El Paso, Corpus Christi, Beaumont, Brownsville, Waco and Wichita Falls, among others.
Senate Bill 11 requires school boards to vote on whether districts will establish a period of prayer or religious reflection for students and staff. School boards were required to hold those votes by March 1.
The legal battle surrounding Senate Bill 10 has drawn national attention over questions involving religious expression in public schools and the limits of the First Amendment.
Last month, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law does not violate the Constitution’s Establishment Clause or Free Exercise Clause. In its majority opinion, the court wrote that Senate Bill 10 “looks nothing like a historical religious establishment.”
“S.B. 10 looks nothing like a historical religious establishment. It does not tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis, or imams,” the court stated. “It punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason.”
However, the ruling was divided. Judge Stephen Higginson issued a dissenting opinion criticizing the court’s decision and arguing it departed from long-standing Supreme Court precedent regarding religion in public education.
“Our court accommodates their unconstitutional request, supplanting decades of Supreme Court precedent merely because of a single decision the majority deems outdated,” Higginson wrote. “In doing so, the majority defies foundational First Amendment concepts, ignores the harms students will face, and usurps parents’ rights to determine the religious beliefs they wish to instill in their own children.”
