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aclu of texas
'Educating, Not Evangelizing': Court Rules Against Texas Ten-Commandments-In-Every-Classroom Law
"Children's religious beliefs should be instilled by parents and faith communities, not politicians and public schools," said a Texas rabbi who sued the state over the law.
Aug 20, 2025
A federal judge on Wednesday shot down a Texas law that would have mandated all public school classrooms across the state display the Ten Commandments.
As reported by local news station KSAT, US District Judge Fred Biery of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction, ruling that the state's law crossed the line from education to proselytizing on behalf of a specific sect of Christianity.
Noting that "the Ten Commandments set out in Texas's Ten Commandments law differs from the version observed by some Protestant faiths, and most adherents of the Catholic and Jewish faiths," Biery argued that the law violated the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which states that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion.
Biery imagined the uproar that would ensue if the city of Hamtramck, Michigan, which is majority Muslim, passed a law mandating that all public schools post passages from the Quran in all classrooms. He then argued that such a law would be just as unconstitutional as the Texas Ten Commandments law.
"While 'We the people' rule by a majority, the Bill of Rights protects the minority Christians in Hamtramck and those 33% of Texans who do not adhere to any of the Christian denominations," he wrote.
The judge also argued that the classroom displays "are likely to pressure the [students] into religious observance, meditation on, veneration, and adoption of the state's favored religious scripture, and into suppressing expression of their own religious or nonreligious background and beliefs while at school."
Organizations that advocate for the separation of church and state were quick to praise Biery's decision to strike down the law, which had been due to go into effect on September 1.
Tommy Buser-Clancy, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas, said that the ruling affirmed that the state cannot coerce any Texans into adopting a particular religious faith.
“Today's ruling is a major win that protects the constitutional right to religious freedom for Texas families of all backgrounds," he said. "The court affirmed what we have long said: Public schools are for educating, not evangelizing."
Rabbi Mara Nathan, one of the plaintiffs who sued to get the law overturned, welcomed the ruling and stated that "children's religious beliefs should be instilled by parents and faith communities, not politicians and public schools."
Freedom From Religion Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor similarly said that "religious instruction must be left to parents, not the state, which has no business telling anyone how many gods to have, which gods to have or whether to have any gods at all."
Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, hailed the ruling and said that it sends a "strong and resounding message across the country that the government respects the religious freedom of every student in our public schools."
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ACLU Leads Legal Challenge to 'Dangerous' Texas Immigration Law
S.B. 4 "will have a devastating impact on people seeking safety at our borders and Texans throughout the state," said one advocate.
Dec 19, 2023
Vowing to stop Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott from enforcing an anti-immigration law that "overrides bedrock constitutional principles" and that has already prompted travel advisories for people planning to visit the Lone Star State, the ACLU led civil rights groups on Tuesday in suing to block Senate Bill 4.
The national group led the ACLU of Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) in challenging the law a day after Abbott signed it, permitting local and state law enforcement officers to arrest and detain people who they suspect of being undocumented immigrants.
Under the law, which is set to go into effect in March unless courts block it, state judges would also be empowered to order a person's deportation even if they were eligible to seek asylum or other protections under federal law.
Texas judges, said the ACLU, "are not trained in immigration law and have no proper authority to enforce it"—just one of the ways in which S.B. 4 is unconstitutional, according to the groups.
"Texas," said the ACLU as it announced the lawsuit, "we'll see you in court."
Representing the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, American Gateways, and the County of El Paso, Texas, the legal groups argued in their complaint that S.B. 4 violates the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes that federal laws—such as the right to seek asylum and the right to due process of law—take precedence over measures passed by states.
"We have sued to block Senate Bill 4 because it will have a devastating impact on people seeking safety at our borders and Texans throughout the state," said Rochelle Garza, president of the TCRP. "This law blatantly disregards people's right to due process and will allow Texas law enforcement to funnel family, friends, and loved ones into the deportation pipeline. S.B. 4 is unconstitutional—Texas does not have the power to implement its own immigration laws. We will not let this stand."
S.B. 4 has also led Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador to prepare a legal challenge through his country's foreign ministry, and several federal lawmakers from Texas and in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to call on U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to block the law.
"S.B. 4 is dangerous for the people of Texas and interferes with the federal government's exclusive authority over immigration and foreign affairs," wrote the lawmakers, including U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.), and Al Green (D-Texas). "S.B. 4 is an unlawful attempt to engage in federal immigration enforcement. This law will also interfere with federal efforts to create a safe, humane, and orderly system at the border."
The ACLU pointed out that the law could arbitrarily subject thousands of people of color to Texas' state prison system, "which is already rife with civil rights abuses."
In addition to being unconstitutional, said Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney at the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, S.B. 4 is "dangerously prone to error, and will disproportionately harm Black and Brown people regardless of their immigration status."
"We're using every tool at our disposal, including litigation, to stop this egregious law from going into effect," said Balakrishnan.
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'A Huge Win': Texas Judge Finds Law Limiting Local Rule Is Unconstitutional
"When local policymaking is stifled, community voices are silenced," said a coalition of progressive groups.
Aug 31, 2023
Local leaders in Texas' increasingly progressive major cities were joined by workers' rights advocates and other pro-democracy groups on Thursday as they applauded a district court judge's ruling that a Republican-authored law aimed at superseding local regulations is unconstitutional and should be temporarily halted.
House Bill 2127, which has been called the Death Star Law by progressive groups, had been set to go into effect on Friday and would prevent cities from enacting and passing local ordinances, including many that would protect workers' rights.
The local governments of Houston, San Antonio, and other Texas cities sued the state after the law was passed in June, allowing Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's administration to overturn existing local rules governing a range of matters including property, natural resources, labor rights, and agriculture, as well as allowing the state to stop cities from implementing new measures.
The law was passed as a long stretch of intense heat began in Texas—setting temperature records across the state, putting people at risk for severe contact burns, and breaking power consumption records—and sparked national outrage as it would prevent cities from imposing rules requiring businesses to give water breaks to construction workers and other people who work outdoors.
The Texas AFL-CIO, Local Progress Texas, Every Texan, ACLU of Texas, and Workers Defense Project said in a joint statement that the judge's ruling on Wednesday will allow "critical, lifesaving local policies to remain in place... reflecting the importance of local leaders being able to respond to their communities' urgent needs."
"Today, we celebrate our powerful communities across the great state of Texas," said the groups. "The overturning of H.B. 2127... represents the power of our localities, our local elected officials, and the communities they represent."
"Texas is a home rule state, built on the values of local democracy and freedom," they added. "The Death Star Law directly contradicted those values—prioritizing corporate interests by using preemption to undermine local democracy and stifle local progress in Texas. Everyday Texans work in collaboration with local leaders to pass policies they need to thrive. So when local policymaking is stifled, community voices are silenced."
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner called the ruling a "tremendous victory," while U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said the decision will, for the time being, allow cities to pass local ordinances without the input of "partisan politicians hundreds of miles away."
Advocates noted that the ruling imposed only a temporary injunction blocking H.B. 2127 from going into effect and that Republican lawmakers have made clear that they will work to eventually impose the law, with an appeal from Abbott's administration expected. States across the country have also passed a number of laws in recent years preempting or limiting local control of a variety of issues, and the federal government has not taken action to ensure that all workers in the U.S. have the kinds of protections the Texas government seeks to remove.
"We celebrate this win today while also acknowledging that this fight is far from over," said the coalition in Texas. "The Death Star law is part of a trend of conservative state legislatures across the country using preemption as a tool to undermine local policies that protect vulnerable Americans and concentrate power in the hands of extreme lawmakers and their corporate interests. We hope that the Texas Supreme Court will uphold this decision to protect local democracy."
"Today, we celebrate this win for Texas communities across the state," the groups said. "Tomorrow, we continue to fight abusive state preemption that silences communities."
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