Texas families file class action lawsuit to halt Ten Commandments display in every school district
As Attorney General Ken Paxton urges districts to disobey federal rulings, church/state watchdogs are pushing for a statewide injunction
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A coalition of groups defending church/state separation has filed a class action lawsuit to block Texas public schools from putting up posters of the Ten Commandments while their lawsuit makes it way through the courts. It’s the latest—and biggest—way the secular side is trying to prevent Christian Nationalists from jamming Christianity into school districts that aren’t currently being sued.
All of this involves the state’s unconstitutional Ten Commandments law.
A quick recap: Earlier this year, Texas passed a bill to post the Decalogue in public schools—King James’ Version only. The law also included a provision requiring the attorney general of the state, Ken Paxton, to defend districts that got sued over this... which is a fancy way of saying taxpayers would be the ones screwed over if liberals tried to fight this in court.
One major lawsuit came anyway: Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District. More than a dozen families in 11 different districts challenged the law and they were represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU of Texas, the ACLU (national), and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. (Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP assisted with the case for free.) Those were basically the same groups that filed similar lawsuits in both Louisiana and Arkansas.
In August, a federal judge sided with the church/state separation crowd, putting a temporary hold on the ridiculous law. The downside is that his ruling only applied to the 11 school districts connected to the plaintiffs in the case. At least until his final order came down.
Those school districts in question were:
Alamo Heights Independent School District
North East Independent School District
Lackland Independent School District
Northside Independent School District
Austin Independent School District
Lake Travis Independent School District
Dripping Springs Independent School District
Houston Independent School District
Fort Bend Independent School District
Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District
Plano Independent School District
Since then, the two sides have been fighting a war urging school districts to listen to their lawyers and not their opponent’s. The church/state separation crowd sent a letter to superintendents across the state on August 21 explaining the judge’s ruling, advising them not to put up posters when the school year begins, and threatening to sue them if they didn’t listen. Days later, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton gave them different advice: He said if the districts weren’t directly involved in the lawsuit, they could go ahead and put up the posters. Because the alternative was “woke.”
14 school districts (not involved in the initial lawsuit) decided to listen to Paxton and they put up the Ten Commandments anyway. As soon as they did, the church/state crowd went directly to the judge to have the signs taken down—basically filing a new lawsuit—Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District—targeting those additional districts.
The plaintiffs in Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District also plan to file a motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, asking the court to require the defendant school districts to remove any Ten Commandments displays currently posted and to refrain from hanging new displays pending the resolution of the litigation.
Those additional districts included:
Comal Independent School District
Georgetown Independent School District
Conroe Independent School District
Flour Bluff Independent School District
Fort Worth Independent School District
Arlington Independent School District
McKinney Independent School District
Frisco Independent School District
Northwest Independent School District
Azle Independent School District
Rockwall Independent School District
Lovejoy Independent School District
Mansfield Independent School District
McAllen Independent School District.
On that list, Conroe ISD, Fort Worth ISD, Arlington ISD, and Frisco ISD ranked among the 25 largest school districts in the state. (The original lawsuit included North East ISD, Northside ISD, Austin ISD, Houston ISD, Fort Bend ISD, Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, and Plano ISD, which are all also in the top 25.)
Since that amended lawsuit was filed, the Christian Nationalists haven’t stopped urging other districts to put up the signs anyway. (In recent months, Christian Nationalist State Sen. Mayes Middleton has donated Ten Commandments displays to the Galveston Independent School District, Manor Independent School District, and several others.) In Galveston, though, even though the Texas law required the district to “accept any offer of a privately donated poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments,” the school board voted against doing that, leading Paxton to sue them.
It’s all a huge game of Whac-A-Mole. Schools districts know that putting up the posters is illegal, but they also have a scandal-plagued and highly litigious Republican attorney general breathing down their necks if they don’t follow his illegal demands.
And that’s why the church/state separation crowd has now taken the biggest step of all.
Rather than asking the judge to apply his temporary injunction to another small batch of school districts that are putting up Ten Commandments posters, they’re asking the judge to put a blanket halt everywhere, even for school districts that haven’t put them up yet.
A group of 18 multifaith and nonreligious Texas families filed a class action lawsuit today to stop all Texas public school districts that are not already involved in active litigation or subject to an injunction from displaying the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Even though two federal judges in Texas have ruled that Senate Bill 10 is unconstitutional, school districts across the state continue to display the Ten Commandments. With more than 1,000 school districts in Texas, a class action lawsuit is the most effective way to protect the religious freedom of all Texas public school children and their families.
The lawsuit—officially called Ashby v. Schertz-Cibolo-Universal ISD—explains exactly why the class action route is the only reasonable way to go at this point:
The Plaintiff Class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable and includes millions of parents and their minor children who are subjected to these unconstitutional displays. Given that there are approximately 5.5 million students enrolled in Texas public schools, joinder of all class members is plainly “impracticable” and the numerosity requirement is easily met. As of the date of this filing, Restore American Schools reported that over 4,211 schools in Texas have complied with S.B. 10, and an estimated 182,310 classrooms and 3,445,659 students have been subjected to the posters.
…
If Plaintiffs are compelled to pursue relief in multiple counties—or even federal districts—across Texas, the same core facts and legal theories could yield divergent outcomes, on different timelines, resulting in both confusion among defendants and a needlessly increased risk that members of the Plaintiff Class will suffer violations of their constitutional rights. Indeed, the Attorney General’s recent decision to sue Galveston ISD, Round Rock ISD, and Leander ISD to enforce S.B. 10 in state court highlights the differing obligations that may be thrust upon members of the Defendant Class, and members of the Plaintiff Class and the Defendant Class alike could thus be subject to varying legal standards solely based on where they happen to file.
This is the only way, in other words, to win the Whac-A-Mole game. Shut everyone down before they have to even consider Paxton’s threat.
But they never should have been in this position in the first place. Keep in mind that, at the moment, the ultimate ball is in the court of the notoriously conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The 17 active judges on that court will hear the Texas and Louisiana cases in January. Until that court weighs in, though, this class action lawsuit could prevent other Texas schools from putting up the useless posters.
For now, though, all these legal fights just reveal how the law was never about education, morality, or “tradition.” It was a test to see how far politicians could push Christian doctrine into public institutions before the courts stepped in. And instead of backing down in the face of multiple federal rulings, the state’s top officials have doubled down, encouraging a patchwork of legally indefensible displays that do nothing but invite chaos and drain public resources.
Civil rights groups should not have to waste their time, money, and expertise filing all these lawsuits just to force the state to abide by constitutional norms that have been settled for decades. But when your opponents are religious zealots, the rest of us have to act as full-time watchdogs.
And for what? No student will become more educated because a mandated King James Bible passage is bolted to the wall. No community will grow safer because “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is somewhere in the middle of a list students aren’t eager to read. Yet this is apparently the hill that Republicans want to die on while they avoid doing anything to actually make their constituents’ lives better.
It’s anyone’s guess what the Fifth Circuit will do after next month, but this was always a long game, with the goal of getting the U.S. Supreme Court to declare, with no evidence, that sticking the Ten Commandments in classrooms is a part of our nation’s history. (It wasn’t. It isn’t. It never will be.)
Until that time, though, the courts should do their job, and the message is simple: Public schools are not pulpits and no state law can change that.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
Maybe they should put up a copy of the Ten Commandments in Ken Paxton's office, seeing as how he's violated a few himself.
Hey Christian Nazionalists! Secular does not now mean, and never has meant atheistic or anti-Christian. It has always meant neutrality towards religion. When applied to the government, that means that your religion does not get oppressed, neither does it get privilege. It must stand on its own. Christianity, while in decline now, has flourished here in the US thanks to that secular government.
Why are you so afraid of fair and equal treatment? Are you afraid that given actual fair treatment alongside other religious ideas yours will be found wanting, thus accelerating the decline? Are you afraid that if you don't have the power of the majority, you will be treated badly? We are not like you. We don't care who you worship or if you worship. We don't care what religious rules you want to follow. We just do not want to be forced to follow your religious rules.
Put up the Ten Commandments anywhere you want that actually belongs to you. Just don't put them in shared spaces that we all own. If your argument is "tradition", then the 5 pillars of Islam should be posted next to those, since the evidence shows that there were very likely at least 2 Muslims who fought against England inf th Revolutionary War. Jefferson owned at least one Koran.