The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that Texas can require the Ten Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom in the state, handing religious-liberty advocates a significant legal victory and setting the stage for a likely showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decision reversed a lower federal court that had blocked enforcement of Texas Senate Bill 10, which Governor Greg Abbott signed on June 10. The law requires every public elementary, secondary, and charter school classroom in Texas to display the Ten Commandments beginning with the 2025, 2026 school year. Newsmax reported that displays had already gone up across many classrooms statewide after the law took effect on September 1, with districts paying for posters themselves or accepting donations.

The ruling came down on a narrow margin. Sources differ on the exact vote count, the Associated Press reported a 9, 8 split, while Breitbart described it as 9, 7. What is not in dispute is the outcome: the full court sided with Texas and against the families who challenged the law on First Amendment grounds.

The court's reasoning: no coercion, no constitutional violation

At the heart of the Fifth Circuit's opinion is a straightforward conclusion: posting the Ten Commandments on a classroom wall does not force students to adopt a religious belief. The majority wrote:

"No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin."

The court found that the plaintiffs, 16 multifaith families who challenged the law, failed to demonstrate that Senate Bill 10 placed a substantial burden on their right to religious exercise. The Fifth Circuit's written opinion stated plainly:

"Because Plaintiffs fail to show that S.B. 10 substantially burdens their right to religious exercise, their Free Exercise claims must be dismissed. Accordingly, we REVERSE the district court's judgment."

That reversal is legally significant. A lower district court had sided with the challengers and issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law. Federal judges had issued injunctions in two separate cases, barring about two dozen school districts from posting the displays. Tuesday's ruling sweeps those blocks aside.

The majority also tackled the precedent question head-on. Fox News reported that the court said the old Supreme Court decision in Stone v. Graham, which had been used to strike down similar displays, no longer controls because it relied on the so-called Lemon test. The Supreme Court abandoned that framework in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. The Fifth Circuit majority put it bluntly: "With Lemon extracted, there is nothing left of Stone."

That doctrinal shift matters. For decades, opponents of religious expression in public spaces leaned on the Lemon test as their primary weapon. With the Supreme Court itself having discarded it, the Fifth Circuit concluded that the old playbook no longer applies.

Texas officials celebrate; opponents signal appeal

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the decision "a major victory for Texas and our moral values." Jonathan Saenz, president and attorney for Texas Values, went further, as Fox News reported:

"This is one of the most important religious liberty victories for Texas in our glorious history."

Backers of the law have long argued that the Ten Commandments are not merely religious scripture but a historical document that helped shape the foundation of American law. That argument carried the day at the Fifth Circuit. Critics, meanwhile, maintain the displays violate the separation of church and state, a framing the court majority explicitly rejected.

The ACLU has indicated the case could be appealed to the Supreme Court. That prospect is widely expected. The Fifth Circuit's earlier ruling upholding Louisiana's similar Ten Commandments law already pointed toward a high-court confrontation. In February, the same appeals court voted 12, 6 to lift a block that a lower court had placed on Louisiana's law in 2024.

A broader movement gains ground

Texas and Louisiana are not alone. The AP noted that the ruling boosts supporters of similar display laws in Arkansas and Alabama. Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have pushed to incorporate religious expression into public schools, and the Fifth Circuit's decisions give that effort its strongest legal footing in years.

Not every court has reached the same conclusion. A federal judge permanently blocked Ten Commandments displays in Arkansas classrooms in a separate case, illustrating the legal divide that makes Supreme Court review increasingly likely. The split between courts virtually guarantees the justices will face the question sooner rather than later.

The full Fifth Circuit heard arguments in both the Texas and Louisiana cases in January. The Louisiana ruling came first, in February. Tuesday's Texas decision followed the same legal logic and landed the same result, a pattern that suggests the court's conservative majority views the post-Lemon landscape as settled ground.

On the ground in Texas, the practical effect is immediate. School districts that had been barred from posting the displays can now proceed. Many had already done so before the injunctions came down, printing posters or accepting donated copies. With the appellate block removed, the remaining holdouts face a clear directive from the state.

The case also fits a broader pattern of federal appeals courts delivering outcomes that align with conservative legal priorities. From religious liberty to structural constitutional questions, the appellate bench has become a consequential arena, and one where originalist reasoning is increasingly ascendant.

That shift is not lost on the left. Civil-liberties organizations have signaled they will fight the Texas and Louisiana rulings at every level. But each successive loss narrows their options. The Lemon test is gone. The Fifth Circuit has spoken twice. And the Supreme Court that dismantled Lemon in the first place may soon have the chance to speak definitively.

Meanwhile, other federal appeals courts have also been willing to revisit longstanding legal assumptions on constitutional grounds, a trend that suggests the judiciary's appetite for originalist correction extends well beyond the religion clauses.

What comes next

The path forward leads to One First Street. If the ACLU or allied groups petition for Supreme Court review, the justices will decide whether to take up a question they have circled for years: can a state post the Ten Commandments in a public school classroom without violating the Constitution?

The Fifth Circuit has now answered that question twice, for Louisiana and for Texas, with a resounding yes. The lower courts that tried to block both laws have been overruled. And the legal framework those lower courts relied on has been dismantled by the Supreme Court itself.

For the families and taxpayers of Texas, the ruling means something concrete: their elected representatives passed a law, their governor signed it, and a federal appeals court said the Constitution permits it. That is how the system is supposed to work.

The opponents who spent years using the Lemon test as a battering ram against public religious expression are running out of precedent. They may yet get their day at the Supreme Court. But they will walk in without their best weapon, and into a court that took it away.