A new law requiring Texas public schools to display posters of the Ten Commandments in every classroom is set to go into effect next month, unless a federal court intervenes. The law does not allocate state funding or require teachers and schools to purchase the posters; instead, under Senate Bill 10, educators must accept donations and display the posters once received.
As a result, most displays will likely come through donations.
A number of politically conservative organizations from across Texas and the country are tackling the massive task to get posters donated and hung, with multiple schools in the Houston area and across the state having already received them. Several groups are ushering prospective donors to one website, Restore American Schools, where a poster can be made and donated to a classroom in Texas for the cost of $1.
"We couldn’t beat that price," said Rebecca Smith, CEO of Love Heals Youth, a Christian nonprofit based in the Houston area. "We had to jump all over that, because that meant we were going to be able to reach our goal much faster."
The donation page linked on the site says it's "powered by MillionVoices" which describes itself online as "an association of churches focused on mobilizing pastors and people of faith and freedom." MillionVoices did not respond to a request for comment. A tracker on the Restore American Schools website indicates posters have been secured for more than 145,000 classrooms at more than 4,100 Texas schools.
The initiative involves conservative political commentator and media personality Glenn Beck, along with nearly two dozen conservative or Christian-based nonprofits.
In a 15-minute video posted to Facebook on July 20, Beck announced Restore American Schools' partnership with American Journey Experience, an offshoot of Beck's nonprofit Mercury One, which he founded 14 years ago. Beck said the group was also partnering with Patriot Mobile, a Christian conservative wireless provider, and Wall Builders, an organization that says it provides "resources to Educators so they can understand and teach the Christian history of our nation."
"This is a movement to restore the Ten Commandments back into public school classrooms," Beck said while urging viewers to send the posters to as many schools as they can. "This is really, really important."
Mercury One, American Journey Experience and Restore American Schools did not respond to requests for comment.
Smith, whose children attend a Christian private school, said she connected with Restore American Schools through Wall Builders, a listed partner on the website.
"I haven’t actually spoken with anybody at Restore American Schools," she said.
Who else is involved?
Twenty-three partners are listed on the website, most of them Christian-based. The list of partners includes mostly nonprofit organizations, and some include missions that advance Christian nationalism on their sites. The Restore American Schools site does not make any references to Christianity, instead stating the Ten Commandments offer a "universal moral foundation."
Partnering national organizations like Faith & Liberty say their mission is to "[bring] the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all people in the Nation's Capital," while another partner, Patriot Academy, says they "train citizens to understand and influence government policy with a biblical worldview.
"The Christian conservative wireless company Patriot Mobile told Houston Public Media, "We believe this project reminds students that Americans' rights come from God, not the government."
The Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute is also a listed partner. The think tank's chairman is state Sen. Phil King (R-Weatherford), who authored the Ten Commandments display bill.
Texas-based groups including Love Heals Youth, Liberty Library Project and Texas Values are also part of the Restore American Schools effort.
Jonathan Saenz, a spokesperson for Texas Values, confirmed they are part of the coalition, but said they are not managing the website or the donations.
"You could have over 200,000 classrooms, a lot of classrooms [and] that's a lot of posters," said Saenz. "So, instead of everybody kind of doing their own thing, everybody felt it'd be good to all get together, get everything on one website, and get the focus on having the posters purchased and donated and ready to go."
Not everyone is on board
The Ten Commandments law championed by Republican state legislators, who argue the commandments provide historical context and are core to U.S. history, is part of a broader nationwide movement to instill conservative, Christian values into schools. But it's gotten pushback from Democrats and others who say it violates First Amendment protections against government-established religion.
A coalition of four civil liberties organizations has filed a federal lawsuit in an attempt to block SB 10 from taking effect Sept. 1 as planned, after similar laws in Arkansas and Louisiana were at least partially blocked by federal courts. The suit was filed in Texas on behalf of 16 families of varying religious and nonreligious backgrounds, with school districts in the Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio areas named as defendants.
In a court hearing on Friday, a lawyer for the Texas Attorney General's Office, representing the school districts, said the classroom poster requirement was a "passive display" and "the Ten Commandments are foundational for the American System of laws."
After arguments wrapped on Monday, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs – Americans United for Separation of Church and State – wrote in a statement: "This law is a transparent attempt to pressure public school students to convert to the state's preferred brand of Christianity."
"Parents and children – not politicians or school officials – should get to decide if, when and how to engage with religion," they added.
U.S. Judge Fred Biery has not yet ruled on the plaintiffs' request for a temporary injunction, which would apply only to the 11 districts named in the lawsuit and not statewide. Among the districts named as defendants are Houston ISD, Cy-Fair ISD and Fort Bend ISD.
There is another lawsuit filed by a Dallas activist group, the Next Generation Action Network Legal Advocacy Fund, seeking to block the Ten Commandments posters from several North Texas school districts.
In the meantime, the Restore American Schools coalition is moving forward to supply campuses with Ten Commandments posters while the law is being debated in court. The Restore American Schools website states that donations fund the printing and delivery of the posters and "larger contributions [expand] our impact across more communities." The site is not registered as a nonprofit.
The website asks volunteers to deliver bundles of posters directly to the school districts' administration offices and take photos of the deliveries for the organization to track donations. The site also encourages volunteers to check back with schools "once school begins to see if the posters are displayed." They also provide a copy of SB 10 for volunteers to carry in case a school denies the donation.
Rollout underway
Social media posts show the posters advertised on the Restore American Schools website have been delivered to school districts across Texas and credited to local organizations.
Superintendent Bobby Ott of Temple ISD, in Central Texas, told Houston Public Media that his school system had received posters for the entire district donated by an "anonymous" donor. A photo Ott posted to X of the donation pictured him holding a poster identical to the one displayed on Restore American Schools.
Citizens Defending Freedom, a listed partner on the website, reports it donated more than 1,000 posters to Allen ISD in the Dallas area.
Several school districts in the northern suburbs of Houston received donated posters printed by Restore American Schools through Love Heals Youth, including Montgomery and Magnolia ISDs.
A spokesperson for Montgomery ISD said they "have not yet been distributed to campuses. We are currently developing a plan for distribution to ensure compliance with SB 10 by the law's effective date." Magnolia ISD wrote in a statement that it is "working with maintenance to have them put in each classroom by September 1."
Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles, whose district is among those being sued over the law, said Tuesday, "We will follow the law on September 1. We will be ready. In fact what does that mean? We will have the Ten Commandments posted in every classroom."
HISD, the largest school district in Texas with more than 270 campuses and 175,000 students, did not provide further specifics on how it plans to ensure every classroom receives a poster.
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