5th Circuit Upholds Texas Ten Commandments School Law

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Texas may require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom, overturning a lower court's block on the law and allowing the posters to go up across the state.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, based in New Orleans, voted 9-7 to uphold Senate Bill 10 in a decision written by Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan. The law, enacted by the Texas Legislature last year, mandates that a poster containing the Ten Commandments be placed in a conspicuous location in each public elementary and secondary school classroom. The majority opinion stated that the requirement does not violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from establishing religion, or its Free Exercise Clause, which protects religious practice. "The Texas law does not tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis, or imams," Duncan wrote. "It punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason."

The ruling reverses a preliminary injunction issued by a federal district judge earlier this year, which had halted enforcement in about...