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June 29, 2025 13 mins

A group of parents in the U.S. state of Texas have launched a lawsuit to stop the state government from forcing all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments — a list of moral orders central to some religions. The Texas families are mostly themselves Christian, but they argue the move is violating their civil rights under the US Constitution, among other concerns. In today’s deep dive, we’ll unpack the details and explain the legal background to this case.

Hosts: Emma Gillespie and Sam Koslowski
Producer: Elliot Lawry
Research: Lucy Tassell

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already, and this is the dais, This is the DAILI OS.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to
the Daily OS. It's Monday, the thirtieth of June. Happy
end of financial year. I'm Emma Gillespie.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
I'm Sam Kaulowski.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
A group of parents in the US state of Texas
have launched a lawsuit to stop the state government from
forcing all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments,
a list of moral orders central to some religions. Texas
follows another state, Louisiana, in forcing teachers to hang up
a poster of the religious text after it passed the

(00:44):
law earlier this month. But as with Louisiana, parents are
fighting back. The Texas families involved in this fight are
mostly themselves Christian, but they argue the move is violating
their civil rights under the US Constitution, among other concerns,
all of which we are unpacking in today's Deep Dive.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Emma, I think the really interesting angle to this case
is that point you just said about the families mostly
themselves being Christian. The family suing Texas over the Ten
Commandments law are religious. Yep. Do we know what religions
exactly they belong? To yes.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
So the key plaintiffs or complainants in this case are
mostly Protestants. So that's one of the main arms of Christianity.
And these Protestants are from different branches of the faith,
but we'll call them Protestants. And there are also parents
in the group who belong to an organization called the
Nation of Islam. Now, for clarity, this is not a

(01:45):
group affiliated with mainstream Islam. It actually has different beliefs
and is best known as a black supremacist or black
nationalist organization. You might have heard of it associated with
Malcolm X, a civil rights activist who was assassinated in
nineteen sixty five. Now, the Nation of Islam has been
classified as a hate group by organizations like the Southern

(02:08):
Poverty Law Center. It cites a lengthy history of anti
Semitism and homophobia by some of the group's leaders, including
its current leader Louis Farakhan. Now it might sound like
an unlikely pairing to be talking about legal action being
brought by this black nationalist group and Protestant groups together
in opposition, but that's exactly what's happened there together in

(02:31):
opposition against this Texas law that's just been signed. By
the state's governor, a man called Greg Abbott.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
And let's spend a bit of time actually talking through
what that law is trying to do.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yes, so it would mandate that every public school classroom,
whether primary or high school, would have to display a
version of the Ten Commandments.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
And for just in case, we're kind of assuming that
you haven't been exposed to the Ten Commandments in some
sort of setting before, run me through exactly what we're
talking about here.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
So the Ten Commandments are moral orders that are central
to Christianity and Judaism. They include these broad rules of
things like you know, don't murder, don't steal, thou shalt
not lie, as well as some more specific religious directions.
But many of the Commandments are interpreted differently between various
religions and religious groups.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
And that's an interesting point, I guess. And is there
an indication in the current framework in Texas of what
versions are going to be up in classrooms.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yes, So the legislation specifies that classrooms would have to
display a version of the Commandments closest to the one
printed in the King James Bible, now that was published
in the sixteen hundreds, which means these posters in classrooms
would display lines like thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife,
nor his manservant, nor his maid servant, nor his cattle,

(03:51):
nor anything that is thy neighbors, and honor thy father
and thy mother. So that version is what passed the
Texas State Legislature, which is its version of Parliament in
late May, and Governor Abbotts signed that into law last week,
but it doesn't actually come into effect until the first
of September.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
And is that just to allow time for you know,
the printing of the posters, I guess, and schools to
get organized and some of that kind of implementation time.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Well a little bit. It's for similar reasons to why
Australian governments often set a date into the future for
laws to come into effect. It allows time for stakeholders
to kind of get ready, but also for any adjustments
from the industries and groups that a law affects. So
in this case, this window has allowed for a legal
challenge to be posed by these groups who are against

(04:41):
displaying the posters.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
I want to ask you a bit more about exactly
what they're arguing, but first let's hear a quick message
from our sponsor. Okay, So, just to recap, the state
of Texas has passed this law, which isn't coming into
effect until September, that mandates public school classrooms show a
version of the Ten Commandments on the wall. And in
response to that, a group of religious parents have launched

(05:05):
a lawsuit trying to stop it. Now, Emma, you mentioned
right at the top they were arguing that it went
against the US Constitution. What can you tell me about
the link between these posts in the classroom and the
core document to America.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yes, so we hear a lot about the US Constitution.
This is the founding document of the United States. It
has seven original articles and twenty seven amendments. And this
case hinges on the First Amendment to the Constitution, which
is probably one that the average assie has heard about
before because it's the one that protects freedom of speech.

(05:42):
So the First Amendment, on top of freedom of speech,
also protects freedom of religion, and activist groups have said
it protects freedom from religion. Now, that's because it says
the US Congress can't make laws about religious establishments and
can't stop people from to seeing religion.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
So I guess to put that in kind of the
classroom context. Y, it means that the First Amendment should
protect a kid who wants to practice their religion in
the classroom, but then also protect a kid who doesn't
want religion imposed on them.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Exactly, that's a classroom full of kids of different faiths.
So the parents argue that legal precedent is on their
side when it comes to their case for trying to
get this law abolished to avoid having these Commandments displayed.
They say that there has been a precedent for almost
half a century. It has been well settled that the
First Amendment forbids public schools from posting the Ten Commandments

(06:39):
in this manner. So they're citing there a nineteen eighty u. S.
Supreme Court decision in a case from the state of Kentucky,
which passed a law requiring a copy of Ten Commandments
be in every public school classroom.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
So this isn't a new idea. It's come up before, exactly.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Not only has it come up before forty five years
ago in the eighties, it's actually come up a lot
more recently in the state of Louisiana. So last year
they passed a very similar law in June, and that
was very quickly blocked by a successful legal challenge, So
I'm sure for these families in Texas they are looking
closely at how that one unfolded for their own argument.

(07:18):
But the state's attorney general in Louisiana appealed and a
higher court blocked it again, So both times the courts
there found that the idea was unconstitutional. Once again, though
Louisiana is appealing and the attorney general said she was
prepared to take it all the way to the Supreme Court.
So there is an ongoing fight in terms of what

(07:38):
will happen in Louisiana with its plan to display these commandments.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Which is interesting when you consider the fact that that
challenge is on foot at the same time as Texas
is now trying to introduce this law. Why do you
think Texas lawmakers have tried to bring this to the
forefront even though it's failed in another state.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
I think it has a lot to do with the
fact that legislation failing in a US state under the
current US Supreme Court doesn't necessarily mean that it's failed
for good. There are many appeal avenues and that is
ongoing in the Louisiana case, and we'll talk a little
bit more about the Supreme Court soon, but when we're
talking about Texas specifically, one of the lawmakers there, Candy Noble,

(08:21):
she was one of the people who brought the bill forward,
so has really been championing this. She said, quote, government
was not made for man. It was made by God
for man, and we would love for our school children
to understand that God gave us the right and privilege
of governing.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
So I know the US does have a complicated court
system with a lot of steps, a lot of avenues
for appeal. We talk about different cases making their way
up the ladder on this podcast, everything from abortion laws
to citizenship. It all seems to kind of snake its
way through exactly. You said that in the Louisiana case
that the Attorney general there was prepared to take it
all the way to the Supreme Court. Is the same

(08:58):
kind of framing being used in Texas for this.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
This is purely speculative, but I do think that that
is what will probably end up being the case for
Texas as well. It's something that we'll only be able
to prove or disprove with time, but it is possible
and we are certainly seeing that approach When it comes
to more conservative law making in the US States. And
the thing to know here about the U. S. Supreme Court,

(09:22):
this is the highest court in the US, is that
positions on its bench of justices come up very very rarely,
and line up changes when they do happen are determined
by the president of the day, so who is in
power at the time. So Supreme Court justices are appointed
to the bench for life. They can either choose to
retire and vacate their position on the bench, but many

(09:46):
of them will die as serving Supreme Court justices. And
when a justice passes away, if they haven't given up
their seat, the President nominates their replacement. Now the Senate
has to approve that replacement. But this has played out
in the first term Donald Trump's presidency when we saw
him replace some justices with more conservative leaning candidates. And

(10:07):
now of the nine justices on the Supreme Court, six
have been appointed by Republican presidents, so they lean more conservative.
So the Supreme Court sitting now in twenty twenty five,
this is the same Supreme Court that overturned the previous
decision in the Roe v. Wade case that returned the
right to make laws about abortion to US states removing

(10:29):
federal protections for abortions, and experts across the US in
the field of abortion activism, but political experts as well,
do attribute Roe v. Wade being overturned to the way
that the conservative justices dominate sure the Supreme Court.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
The composition of the Court at the moment favors more
conservative leanings in cases. That's seen through an evaluation not
just of those really high profile cases, but every single
judgment as a whole when brought together. I've had some
really interesting pieces that kind of evaluates even the language
used in some of these judgments exactly. The other interesting
point here, Emma, is that the Supreme Court has a

(11:06):
limited amount of time to hear cases, so there's a
bit of a kind of priority list that gets moved
around a bit. The fact that two US states will
both have brought we suspect in Texas the same thing
that has happened in Louisiana, it will happen and it
will continue to get appealed. The fact that there's two
US states that bring that will actually give it more
strength to be heard at a Supreme Court level. So

(11:28):
there is a pretty good chance that we'll see this
being argued than the highest court in the country. Is
there a precedent though for the way that the Supreme
Court in the US receives these kind of religious matters.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Well, according to political analysts, yes there is. They say
the Court has cided with religious groups more often than
not in the last fifteen years, and that political environment
could also be the reason why these states are pushing
the Ten Commandments in the classroom. Now, as you've mentioned,
the timing, the strength of two states pushing for the

(12:01):
same thing, the current Supreme Court justice makeup that we're
dealing with, it is possible that all of these things
favor favor the states that want to legislate having these
posters in classrooms. We do know though nothing is coming
into effect straight away. Getting to the Supreme Court is
still several steps away, specially for Texas, where really the

(12:22):
ball has only just started to get rolling. So this
is all speculation, but I would be surprised if we
aren't back here maybe in six to twelve months talking
about a much bigger case in America's top court.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
Of course, as with everything in US politics at the moment,
there's a level of unpredictability in speculation that can extend
all the way through to some sort of federal mandate
being introduced by the current president that would take the
power away from the states and into a more federal context.
All of that speculation, we're going to have to wait
and see, but we will be following this Texas case
closely because it's super interesting. Emma, thank you so much

(12:57):
for taking us through that. Thank you, and we're going
to be back in your ears this afternoon with some headlines.
But until then, have a fantastic start of the week.
We'll speak to you again later. My name is Lily
Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Kalkadin woman from
Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is

(13:18):
recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays
respect to all Aboriginal and torres Rate island and nations.
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
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