Returning the Ten Commandments To Our Classrooms

Today, I filed SB 10, priority legislation that would require Texas’ public schools to once again display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. SB 10 follows the historic 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision which overturned a faulty legal precedent used since 1980 to prohibit these displays.

The Ten Commandments are part of our Texas and American story. They are ingrained into who we are as a people and as a nation. Today, our students cry out for the moral clarity, for the statement of right and wrong that they represent. If our students don’t know the Ten Commandments, they will never understand the foundation for much of American history and law.

In fact, few documents have had a greater impact on the whole of Western Civilization than the Ten Commandments. That’s why for 200 years, up until 1980, they were displayed in public buildings and schools across America. Today you’ll still find them displayed inside the U.S. Supreme Court and a monument to the Ten Commandments stands prominently on the Texas Capitol grounds.

Religious liberty is a bedrock of America’s founding. Until 1980, in a now discredited U.S. Supreme Court decision, Stone v. Graham, schools could acknowledge the role that fundamental religious documents, such as the Ten Commandments, had in America’s heritage. Now however, the legal landscape has been restored. In 2022, in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court overturned what was known as the Lemon test (Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971) which was the precedent upon which Stone v. Graham was errantly decided. The now overturned Lemon test had been used for decades in an effort to eradicate all references to religion from the public square. 

SB 10 recognizes the fundamental shift in the legal landscape of religious liberty in America. This legislation is in accord with the history and traditions of our state and nation. It will help ensure our students understand and appreciate the role of the Ten Commandments in our heritage, our system of law, and their impact throughout Western Civilization.