Noah Feldman, Columnist

Can Texas Really Put the Ten Commandments in Public Schools?

By overturning 50 years of precedent on the separation of church and state, the Supreme Court has opened the door to a flood of religious legislation.

April 25, 2023 at 1:00 PM UTC

By Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Coming to a school near you
Photographer: Ed Lallo/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

Late last week, the Texas Senate passed a bill requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every classroom in the Lone Star State. It’s not that surprising in the wake of the Supreme Court’s blockbuster June 2022 decision, Kennedy v. Bremerton, which overturned all existing jurisprudence about the separation of church and state.

Before that ruling, the Texas bill would’ve been an obviously unconstitutional establishment of religion, something prohibited by the First Amendment of the Constitution. Now, however, it comes under the disturbing category of “Who knows?”