When Texas lawmakers handed a invoice requiring each classroom to show the Ten Commandments, educators knew controversy would observe. The legislation, signed earlier this summer season, mandated {that a} 16-by-20-inch framed copy of the biblical textual content cling prominently in each public college classroom. Almost instantly, lawsuits poured in.

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Many lecturers, nevertheless, additionally began brainstorming how to withstand or reinterpret the requirement. Some crafted inventive strategies of malicious compliance, whereas others flatly refused to think about posting the non secular textual content in any respect.

Texas’ Ten Commandments legislation blocked in court

Texas turned the third state in two years to move such a legislation, following related efforts in Arkansas and Louisiana. Like these states, it confronted authorized challenges nearly instantly. Families from a number of non secular traditions sued, arguing the mandate violated their youngsters’s constitutional rights.

The households cited the 1980 Supreme Court case Stone v. Graham, which struck down a Kentucky statute that required the identical show. The Court discovered the legislation breached the Establishment Clause by selling faith in public colleges. Plaintiffs in Texas stated their youngsters can be “forcibly subjected to scriptural dictates, day in and day out.”

On Wednesday, Aug 20. 2025, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery issued a preliminary injunction in Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District. According to CBS, the ruling briefly blocked the legislation, which was set to take impact on Sep. 1. Judge Biery said the measure probably violated each the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.

For now, the injunction halts any effort to implement the show requirement. Yet even with the pause, lecturers had already begun contemplating how they’d deal with the mandate if it had been enforced.

Teachers responded with defiance and creativity

Educators on social media started sharing methods for navigating the controversial legislation. Some leaned on direct defiance. Redditor u/Other-Experience-777 wrote, “I will never post the 10 commandments in my classroom. I will instead post the 1st amendment with a brief summary of the 1980s supreme court case stone vs graham detailing what happened in this very instance.”

Others leaned into satire. u/alpineflamingo2 mocked the statute’s requirement that the commandments be “legible” by sharing them typed solely within the Wingdings font, urging fellow lecturers to copy-paste the model for his or her partitions.

More elaborate options additionally surfaced. u/Annual-Guitar-9070 described a plan to show the Ten Commandments alongside teachings from a big selection of world traditions. Their listing included the Buddhist Five Precepts, the Islamic Pillars of Faith, the Hindu Yamas and Niyamas, the Native American Seven Grandfather Teachings, and extra.

They even proposed including a spaghetti strainer, a nod to the satirical Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. According to the Redditor, the purpose was to spotlight a number of religion traditions equally, in an identical fonts and sizes.

These responses revealed a sample: educators felt the legislation’s rigidity compelled them into both open resistance or satirical compliance. Even these working in closely Christian, conservative communities voiced discomfort with imposing one particular non secular custom in public lecture rooms.

Broader frustrations about priorities in Texas colleges

While many lecturers mentioned methods to subvert or resist the mandate, others identified what they noticed as bigger systemic failures within the state’s schooling system.

In response to the Daily Dot’s request for remark, u/Significant-Jello411 stated, “This state is eternally worried about the wrong things, why don’t we focus on how we’re in the bottom half of states when it comes to education.”

u/Other-Experience-777 added in a remark to the Daily Dot, “I don’t believe I should be forced to put up the Ten Commandments in my classroom even if state law dictates it because it’s a direct violation of my 1st amendment right as a citizen of the United States.”

“The way I see it even if state laws tries to take away my rights I am still protected at a federal level. There is a court case from 1980s which I have posted that sets that [precedent]. I would encourage my fellow teachers to stand in solidarity by refusing to follow along with the ridiculous law.”

Educators expressed concern that lawmakers targeted on non secular shows as a substitute of addressing low funding, trainer shortages, and declining pupil outcomes. According to many lecturers, hanging the Ten Commandments would do little to enhance lecture rooms fighting overcrowding, outdated supplies, or stagnant wages.

u/alpineflamingo2 and u/Annual-Guitar-9070 didn’t reply instantly to the Daily Dot’s request for remark through Reddit DM.

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