In a closely divided decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a Texas law mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, defying established Supreme Court precedent. The ruling, issued in the spring by a 9-8 vote with all six Trump appointees in the majority, requires that a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom, measuring at least 16 inches by 20 inches.

The appellate court notably diverged from a 1980 Supreme Court ruling in Stone v. Graham, which struck down a similar Kentucky law on the grounds that its purpose was to encourage schoolchildren to read, meditate on, and obey the Commandments, thereby violating the First Amendment’s prohibition on the government establishment of religion. While the Supreme Court’s current composition differs significantly from that of 1980, the justices have long maintained that only they—not lower courts—have the authority to overturn their precedents.

The Fifth Circuit has developed a reputation for issuing conservative rulings and has frequently been reversed by the Supreme Court. Over the past two terms, the Supreme Court reversed 18 of 24 decisions appealed from the Fifth Circuit, the highest reversal rate among all circuits. Following the recent ruling in Texas, lawyers representing more than two dozen families of diverse religious and non-religious backgrounds have petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. The Court is expected to decide on whether to take the case in the coming months, with potential oral arguments slated for spring.

Similar legislation has been enacted recently in other states, including Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana, creating a wider context for the legal debate over religious displays in public education.

In his opinion, Judge Kyle Duncan, appointed by former President Donald Trump, argued that the Fifth Circuit was entitled to disregard the 1980 decision because the Supreme Court had, in his view, undermined the precedent by abandoning the 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman framework in a 2022 ruling involving a high school football coach. However, critics noted that neither the 2022 ruling nor Lemon v. Kurtzman addressed laws on the Ten Commandments or public school displays, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly instructed lower courts to adhere to binding precedents unless explicitly reversed.

Judge Duncan further advocated using a historical lens to assess the Texas law, paralleling the Supreme Court’s approach to Second Amendment cases. He surveyed historical government practices related to established religion dating back to the era of Henry VIII, concluding that the Constitution’s original intent did not forbid the presence of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

In dissent, Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, nominated by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., noted that public schooling was not widespread at the time the Constitution was drafted and emphasized the absence of a longstanding tradition of Ten Commandments displays in classrooms.

Judge Duncan also cited the First Amendment’s protection of free exercise of religion, referencing a 2023 Supreme Court case that allowed parents to opt out their children from classes containing certain discussions on LGBTQ topics. He argued that the mere presence of the Ten Commandments’ text in classrooms did not amount to unconstitutional coercion. Legal scholars have contested this point, highlighting that students cannot opt out from seeing the Displays as they travel through the school.

Nathan Chapman, a law professor whose scholarship was cited multiple times by Duncan, expressed puzzlement at the reasoning, emphasizing the difference between opt-out rights and the omnipresence of the Ten Commandments posters. In a detailed research paper co-authored with scholars from the University of Chicago and Duke University, Chapman argued that the Texas law clearly violates the Establishment Clause. The authors, all practicing Christians, stated that their opposition to the law was not based on hostility to religion but on constitutional principles, asserting that Texas had effectively assumed the authority to declare religious truths, which the Constitution prohibits.