A Ten Commandments poster that hangs in one suburban Dallas teacher’s classroom is surrounded by hot-pink placards featuring tenets from Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.
A substitute teacher north of Houston is sending her twin daughters to school wearing First Amendment buttons and offering the same pins to other children in their neighborhood.
Meanwhile, a teacher in southeast Texas said she’s playing a “risky game” after deciding she won’t display the Ten Commandments in her classroom at all. But if she must, she said, she will hang it upside down.
These quiet acts of defiance are unfolding as a new Republican-crafted state law — known as Senate Bill 10 — takes effect this month, requiring Texas public elementary and secondary schools to hang the Ten Commandments in every classroom. A school district “must accept any offer of a privately donated poster,” otherwise it “may, but is not required to, purchase posters” using district funds, the law states.
It’s unclear how many districts have complied with the law since the start of the school year.
In addition, a handful of school districts where parents and faith leaders have filed legal challenges remain exempt from the mandate as federal litigation plays out. The plaintiffs contend that forcing the Ten Commandments into public schools is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.