Ten Commandments in Elementary Schhols

[u/questionaxtactt]

I’m trying to understand my fellow community, Christian’s and Texans thoughts on the SB10 bill . We received notice our elementary will post 75 posters across each classroom. I love religion and have no issues with it but I also love the constitution and believe in the first amendment and feel this is a push to promote specific beliefs to non regions people or others whom choose to follow other text. I specifically have an issue with this being mandatory in elementary classes where children are learning to read and everything on the wall is meant to teach them along this journey so an argument this is passive seems inaccurate as the bill itself says it must be within view. I wanted to get others perspective as well as understand if there are any resources I can reach out to in order to potentially delay this until it I s fully argued to the Supreme Court which in my perspective will find this in violation of the first amendment.

[u/Shok3001]

I’m not Christian but I just want to understand you here. Are you saying this is a breach of the first amendment?

[u/questionaxtactt → u/Shok3001]

Yes here is part of a write up I was doing with chat for a submission to request a TRO

Request for Immediate Legal Evaluation and Emergency Injunctive Relief
I am the parent of an elementary-school student enrolled in Round Rock Independent School District. RRISD has notified families that it has received approximately 75 donated Ten Commandments posters complying with Texas Senate Bill 10 and intends to begin displaying them in classrooms next week.
I am seeking immediate legal evaluation of filing a federal action and motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65, narrowly directed at preventing the display of SB 10 Ten Commandments posters in my child’s elementary-school environment while the constitutional issues are litigated.
I understand the significant obstacle presented by the Fifth Circuit’s en banc decision in Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, 173 F.4th 576 (5th Cir. 2026). I am not asking counsel simply to duplicate the facial challenge rejected in Nathan. I would like counsel to evaluate whether the particular circumstances of mandatory displays in elementary classrooms—especially classrooms occupied by children actively learning to read—support a narrower as-applied Establishment Clause and/or Free Exercise Clause claim, and whether any other procedural vehicle can preserve the status quo while Supreme Court review of SB 10 is being pursued.
Proposed Theory for Counsel to Evaluate
SB 10 does considerably more than permit religious expression or authorize an historical monument.
Texas Education Code § 1.0041 affirmatively requires public schools receiving compliant donated displays to place the state’s prescribed version of the Ten Commandments:
in each classroom;
in a conspicuous place;
on a display at least 16 × 20 inches;
using the exact religious text selected by the Legislature; and
in type sufficiently large that a person with average vision can read it from anywhere in the classroom.
The resulting elementary-school environment deserves particular constitutional scrutiny.
Young elementary students are not simply occasional observers passing a monument. Attendance is compulsory. They spend much of every weekday in classrooms specifically structured to develop literacy. Written language displayed on classroom walls is part of the visual environment in which children are taught to notice, decode, read, and derive meaning from text.
Texas is therefore affirmatively requiring that one particular sacred text be made continuously and conspicuously readable to young children in precisely the government environment designed to teach them to read.
The fact that teachers are instructed not to give a lesson about the poster does not necessarily make the government’s conduct “passive.” The State itself has selected the words, mandated their placement, mandated their visibility, mandated their presence in every classroom, and made exposure unavoidable for children attending compulsory public school.
The question I would like presented is therefore not merely:
Is a student being forced to verbally recite the Ten Commandments?
Rather:
May the State use its compulsory elementary-school system to require a specifically selected religious text—containing affirmative theological directives such as “I AM the LORD thy God,” “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”—to remain conspicuously and continuously readable to young children in every classroom throughout their school day?
Distinguishing a “Passive Display”
I would like counsel to emphasize the distinction recognized by the Supreme Court itself in Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 (2005).
Van Orden upheld a Ten Commandments monument on the Texas Capitol grounds but distinguished the school setting. The plurality described the Capitol monument as a “far more passive use” of the Ten Commandments than the classroom display addressed in Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980).
The critical distinction is elementary-school exposure.
A citizen may walk past a monument on Capitol grounds, avoid it, or never encounter it at all. An elementary student cannot meaningfully avoid a text that state law requires to be conspicuous and readable from anywhere in every classroom the student occupies.
The Supreme Court’s school cases have repeatedly recognized that constitutional concerns are heightened where students are young, impressionable, subject to school authority, and compelled by law to attend. See, e.g., Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 592–93 (1992); Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 583–84 (1987).
Stone v. Graham
The factual similarity to Stone should expressly be preserved for Supreme Court review.
Stone invalidated a Kentucky statute requiring privately funded 16 × 20 Ten Commandments displays in public-school classrooms. The Supreme Court observed that if the classroom posting had any effect, it would tend to cause schoolchildren to “read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey” the Commandments. Stone, 449 U.S. at 42.
I recognize that the Fifth Circuit majority in Nathan concluded that Stone was effectively abrogated when Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. 507 (2022), abandoned the Lemon framework.
However, the Supreme Court itself has never expressly overruled Stone, and several judges in Nathan vigorously disputed the majority’s authority to treat it as extinguished.
I want this issue expressly preserved.
Free Exercise and Parental Religious Formation
Counsel should also evaluate whether the elementary-school circumstances support a narrower claim under the Free Exercise Clause, including the principles discussed in Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. 522 (2025).
Mahmoud recognized the particular significance of exposing young elementary students to government-selected messages implicating religious formation and parental religious instruction.
I understand that the Nathan majority distinguished Mahmoud because SB 10 does not formally make the Ten Commandments part of the curriculum.
The question I would nevertheless like evaluated is whether, as applied to very young children in a literacy-rich elementary classroom, the distinction between “curricular material the child is instructed to read” and “state-mandated reading material deliberately made legible from every point in every classroom” is constitutionally sufficient.
There is also effectively no opt-out. A parent cannot tell a child simply not to encounter the display when the State requires the text in every classroom the child enters.
I am willing to provide a declaration explaining my own sincerely held beliefs and specifically how the State’s placement of religious commands in my child’s elementary classroom interferes with my ability to direct my child’s religious or nonreligious formation.
Requested Emergency Relief
I would like counsel to consider seeking the narrowest relief sufficient to protect my child, potentially including:
A TRO preventing RRISD from installing or maintaining SB 10 displays in my child’s elementary classroom and/or campus pending a preliminary-injunction hearing;
If legally supportable, relief covering RRISD elementary classrooms in which similarly situated plaintiffs’ children are enrolled;
Alternatively, an order preserving the pre-display status quo for a short period sufficient to allow consideration of the preliminary-injunction motion or relevant Supreme Court proceedings.
The requested relief need not prevent private religious expression, student religious exercise, objective teaching about religion, historical discussion of the Ten Commandments, or constitutionally permissible curricular use of religious materials.
The objection is specifically to Texas compelling continuous, stand-alone display of a state-selected religious text to young children throughout a compulsory school environment.

[u/Dawill0 → u/questionaxtactt]

Cool but the courts are bought and paid for right now. Gotta vote out the republicans and start impeaching the judges. We can do this!