An additional 14 Texas public school systems are being sued to stop them from installing classroom Ten Commandments displays mandated by the state.
A coalition of civil rights groups filed a federal complaint Sept. 22 against the Arlington, Azle, Comal, Conroe, Flour Bluff, Fort Worth, Frisco, Georgetown, Lovejoy, Mansfield, McAllen, McKinney, Northwest and Rockwall independent school districts.
The action follows a lawsuit filed in July seeking to stop 11 other districts from implementing Senate Bill 10, the new state law requiring 16-by-20-inch framed copies or posters of the Decalogue in every public-school classroom in Texas.
A federal judge in that case declared the law to be religiously coercive and on Aug. 20 barred the Alamo Heights, Austin, Cypress Fairbanks, Dripping Springs, Fort Bend, Houston, Lackland, Lake Travis, Plano, North East and Northside independent school districts from erecting the displays while litigation continues.
Both lawsuits are led by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom from Religion Foundation and Simpson Thacher and Bartlett LLP, and both were filed in federal court in San Antonio.
Plaintiffs in the most recent case, Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District, are 15 nonreligious and multi-faith families in districts where Ten Commandments displays already have been installed or are about to be installed, according to their attorneys.
The lawsuit points to District Judge Fred Biery’s August ruling in Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District that Texas’ Ten Commandments law is “plainly unconstitutional.” Biery also noted a federal court in Louisiana determined that state’s Decalogue statute is “facially unconstitutional.”
Rachel Laser
“Our Constitution’s guarantee of church-state separation means that families — not politicians — get to decide when and how public-school children engage with religion,” Americans United President Rachel Laser said. “Multiple federal courts, including in Texas, have been clear: Ten Commandments displays in public schools violate students’ and families’ religious freedom. These displays must be removed.”
The new litigation is another sign of the desire of religious and nonreligious Texans united against the state’s unconstitutional Ten Commandments law, said Chloe Kempf, staff attorney at ACLU of Texas.
Chloe Kempf
“This lawsuit is a continuation of our work to defend the First Amendment and ensure that government officials stay out of personal family decisions. All students — regardless of their race or religious background — should feel accepted and free to be themselves in Texas public schools,” she said.
State-sponsored religion has no place in public classrooms, plaintiff Lenee Bien-Willner explained.
“Forcing religion, any religion, on others violates my Jewish faith,” she said. “It troubles me greatly to have Christian displays imposed on my children. Not only is the text not aligned with Judaism, but the commandments should be taught in the context of a person’s faith tradition.”
Students’ religious education should be up to their parents, said plaintiff and Lutheran minister Kristin Klade.
“The mandated Ten Commandments displays in my children’s public school impede my ability to ‘train up my child in the way he should go,’” she said in reference to Proverbs 22:6. “I address questions about God and faith with great care, and I emphatically reject the notion that the state would do this for me.”
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