HOUSTON — Three Texas parents have filed a lawsuit seeking to block and remove Ten Commandments posters from public school classrooms, arguing that state laws protecting religious freedom and parental rights conflict with a recently enacted state mandate requiring the displays.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Harris County state court, requests a court order to remove the posters and prevent their placement before students return for the upcoming school year, which begins in early to mid-August for many districts. The legal challenge takes a different approach than previous federal attempts that focused on the constitutional separation of church and state.

Last year, the Texas Legislature passed a law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in elementary and secondary classrooms. The posters feature a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments drawn from the King James Bible—the same text inscribed on a monument outside the Texas Capitol. The mandate had faced federal court challenges, but in April the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the law, ruling it did not violate the U.S. Constitution. That decision also cleared the way for Louisiana to implement a similar requirement.

Rather than contesting the law on First Amendment grounds, the parents’ lawsuit relies on the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed in 1999 under then-Governor George W. Bush. The act has traditionally been invoked by religious groups or individuals when they argue that government actions interfere with their religious practices. The suit contends that displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools "substantially interferes with plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion, religious development, and rights to raise their children free of State-sponsored religion."

The complaint also cites a state constitutional amendment adopted last year, which guarantees parents the right to direct their children’s upbringing. One plaintiff, Emily Roth, whose children attend Spring Branch Independent School District and whose family is nonreligious, said she did not intend to introduce the Ten Commandments to her young children and that they do not reflect her household’s values.

The plaintiffs include Roth as well as Sanjam Kaur Sohal, who practices Sikhism, and Audrey Rosa Nath, who is raising her children with a mixture of family traditions including Jainism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Quakerism. They argue that the mandated displays compel their children to confront religious messages that conflict with their families’ beliefs.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defended the displays, characterizing the Ten Commandments as foundational to U.S. history. “The Ten Commandments have had a profound impact on our nation, and it’s important that students learn from them every single day,” Paxton said in a statement after the appeals court decision.

Some districts in the Houston area refrained from posting the displays last school year while federal litigation was underway. The new suit presents an untested legal avenue, and analysts say the outcome is uncertain. Steven T. Calaw, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, noted that parents may argue the law amounts to religious compulsion that conflicts with their beliefs, but he called it an open question whether that claim will succeed in state court. Previous challenges have primarily centered on the federal Establishment Clause, which prohibits government establishment of religion.