Senate Bill 10 (the Ten Commandments statute) is ruled Constitutional

April 27, 2026

in: Court Rulings, Religion

by Chris Gilbert, Thompson & Horton LLP

Last week, the en banc Fifth Circuit issued its Ten Commandments decision in Nathan v. Alamo Heights ISD, and ruled 9-8 that Senate Bill 10 (“SB10”) does not violate either the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.  The preliminary injunction issued by the lower court was vacated.  School districts in Texas must now comply with the requirements of SB 10 and post donated posters of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

Because I am actively representing a couple Texas school districts in one of the other two big Ten Commandments cases, I won’t comment in detail on the decision – but I do think it raises the following questions which may lead to an appeal to the Supreme Court:

  • Does the Fifth Circuit’s interpretation of Kennedy’s “historical practices and understandings” test, which seems to narrowly limit the “establishment of…
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Mahmoud v. Taylor: the Pride Puppy Case

May 27, 2025

in: Law, Religion, Supreme Court

by Chris Gilbert, Thompson & Horton LLP

On April 22, 2025, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case from the Fourth Circuit about whether parents have a constitutional right to opt out of public school curriculum choices with which they disagree, in this case because of the parents’ religious beliefs.

At issue was the school district’s decision to use a series of LGBTQ-themed books, including a book called “Pride Puppy,” which (in the words of the court of appeals), depicts a family whose puppy gets lost amidst a LGBTQ-pride parade, with each page focused on a letter of the alphabet. The three- and four-year-old audience is invited to look for items such as “[drag] king,” “leather,” “lip ring,” “[drag] queen,” and “underwear.”  See 102 F.4th 191, 197 (4th Cir. 2024).  The parent plaintiffs claimed they were not challenging the school’s ability to adopt the curriculum…

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To Disrupt or to Invade: Two New First Amendment Cases – Part 2 (T-shirts)

June 29, 2024

in: Court Rulings, Law, Speech

by Chris Gilbert, Thompson & Horton LLP

In a follow up to my recent post about book removals (see Butts, Farts and T-Shirts: Two New First Amendment Cases – Part 1 (books)), today we are discussing L.M. v. Town of Middleborough, Mass., --- F.4th ---- (1st Cir. 2024), a new case from the First Circuit (Massachusetts) involving a challenge to a t-shirt removal.  The plaintiff, a middle school student, wore a t-shirt to school that read “There Are Only Two Genders.”  He was told he could not wear the shirt under a provision of the dress code that prohibited clothing that “state[d], impl[ied] or depict[ed] speech or imagery that targets groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, or any other classification.”  He then wore the same shirt with the words “Only Two” covered by a piece…

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Butts, Farts and T-Shirts: Two New First Amendment Cases – Part 1 (books)

June 17, 2024

in: Court Rulings, Law, Speech

by Chris Gilbert, Thompson & Horton LLP

In the last ten days, two courts of appeals have issued extremely interesting First Amendment cases involving age-old situations –removing books from a library and banning t-shirts in public schools –that, for whatever reasons, haven’t been addressed by the circuit courts in a while.  I’ll talk about the book removal case in Part 1, while Part 2 (later this week!) will talk about t-shirts.

In Little v. Llano County, --- F.4th ---- (5th Cir. 2024), the Fifth Circuit ruled that a public county library violated the First Amendment by removing seventeen (17) specific books, which addressed themes of sexuality and homosexuality; gender identity and dysphoria; and racism – and then a group of seven books that the parties and judges all referred to as “butt and fart” books, as typified by Larry the Farting Leprechaun.

The…

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