This move promotes religious teachings in schools, further showcasing the state’s fixation with Christianity and its attempt to propagate young minds.
While supporters argue this helps students learn moral values and America’s founding principles, critics say it’s a direct violation of the First Amendment and an attack on religious freedom and public education.
In “Stone v. Graham” (1980), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that requiring the Ten Commandments in schools was unconstitutional. But Texas lawmakers are ignoring this precedent.
On February 10, 2025, Chief of Staff at the Texas House of Representatives, Mayes Middleton of Galveston, and Phil King of Weatherford filed bills allowing prayer time in public schools and requiring classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. Both bills are top priorities for Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and have support from all 20 Republican senators.
For years, the Texas State Board of Education has tried to shape school textbooks to reflect conservative Christian beliefs. These efforts include downplaying slavery and racism, promoting intelligent design alongside evolution, and describing the U.S. as a Christian nation—even though the country was founded on secular principles.
This push to spread a strict ideological agenda is often based on false history. Section 4 of H.B. 71 states: “Recognizing the historical role of the Ten Commandments accords with our nation’s history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the founders of our nation with respect to the necessity of civic morality to a functional self-government. History records that James Madison, the fourth President of the United States of America, stated that ‘we have staked the whole future of our new nation… upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.”
However, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, this quote is fake. Scholars at the University of Virginia, where Madison’s papers are kept, have found no record of him ever saying or writing this.
In fact, Madison was known for supporting the separation of church and state. The fact that lawmakers are using false quotes to justify their agenda raises questions about the legitimacy of what students are really being taught in Texas and other southern schools.
It’s no coincidence that other states pushing religious teachings in schools, like Louisiana and Mississippi, also have some of the lowest IQ scores in the country. Mississippi has the lowest average IQ at 94.2, with Louisiana following at 95.3. These states also have high poverty rates, with Mississippi having the highest in the nation at 19.6%.
Studies suggest that in places with weaker education systems and high poverty, religion often becomes a psychological crutch. Without strong critical thinking education, people are more likely to rely on religious explanations for the world around them. “The human brain looks for meaning, and in areas where education is lacking, religion can take the place of deeper analysis and reasoning,” says sociologist Dr. Richard Lynn.
The push for the Ten Commandments in Texas schools is about more than just religion, it’s part of a larger pattern of using schools to spread political and ideological beliefs. At the same time, the state ignores bigger problems like education quality and environmental dangers that actually affect students’ abilities to learn and think critically.
As these bills move forward, they will face strong legal challenges, but the fight over what children are taught in Texas and southern states classrooms is far from over.
