About 500 Ten Commandments posters are due on Galveston classroom walls by Monday, after a Texas judge gave the school district 10 days to obey the state's new law. The board spent a year fighting it, partly out of fear of being sued. But the law itself already answered that worry: under Senate Bill 10, the Texas attorney general must defend any school sued for hanging the posters, and the state pays the bill.

A Judge Gave Galveston 10 Days, and the Clock Runs Out This Weekend

On Thursday, Oct. 1, 122nd District Judge Jeth Jones granted Attorney General Ken Paxton's request and ordered Galveston ISD to put the donated posters in its classrooms within 10 days, according to the Galveston County Daily News. Jones also rejected three motions from the district, including a request to freeze the case until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to hear a separate federal challenge to the law.

Superintendent Matthew Neighbors said the district will hang about 500 posters, donated by state Sen. Mayes Middleton, by Oct. 12. "Facilities and Operations estimate the posters will cover the vast majority of classrooms in the district," he told the paper.

The board's leaders say they will comply. "We've gone through the process and the court has ruled," Board President Anthony Brown said. "We will accept the court's decision and we'll act accordingly."

How Did a School Board End Up Sued by Its Own State?

SB 10 took effect on Sept. 1, 2025. Middleton, the Galveston Republican who helped carry it, then donated posters to his hometown district. On Oct. 22, 2025, trustees voted to delay hanging them, according to Paxton's petition. The Daily News reported the vote was 4 to 3, with trustees arguing the displays could violate the Constitution, burden teachers and expose children to mature subjects such as adultery.

Paxton sued on Nov. 7, 2025. The petition names the district and all seven trustees in their official capacities and calls their vote an "ultra vires" act, meaning an action outside their legal authority. Trustee Elizabeth Beeton's motion to delay leaned on a federal injunction from San Antonio, but the petition points out that Galveston "was neither a party to the litigation nor enjoined by any order issued in the Nathan case."

The case bounced to federal court and back. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown sent it back to the Galveston County court on July 10, the Daily News reported. Then on Sept. 23 of this year, trustees voted 5 to 2 to keep fighting by taking no action, with Brown and Trustee Ann Masel voting no.

The Law Already Covered the Lawsuits the Board Feared

Here is the part the coverage has skipped. Read the enrolled text of SB 10 and you find subsection (g). It says the attorney general "shall defend a public elementary or secondary school in a cause of action relating to any claims arising out of a school's compliance with this section." It also says "the state is liable for the expenses, costs, judgments, or settlements" in those cases.

In plain English, a district that hangs the posters and gets sued by a parent or an advocacy group does not pay for the fight. Austin does. Paxton's petition made exactly that point to the court, quoting subsection (g) and noting that Galveston "ha[d] not been sued by any such third parties."

So what did resisting cost? Brown told the Daily News the district paid a $25,000 deductible on its insurance policy through the Texas Association of School Boards, which covered the legal fees for defending against the state's suit. Beeton said donations covered most, if not all, of that deductible. Either way, the board paid to defend defiance, while compliance came with a state-funded legal shield.

Galveston Never Had to Spend a Dime on Posters

The rest of the four-page law is just as plain. Subsection (e) says a school "may, but is not required to," buy posters with district money. Subsection (d) says a school without them "must" accept any privately donated poster that meets the specs, as long as it carries no extra content. Subsection (f) says no public school is exempt.

The specs are exact. Each poster must be at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall, legible from anywhere in the room, and contain only the text written into the bill. That text opens with "I AM the LORD thy God" and runs through the commandment against coveting "anything that is thy neighbor's."

That wording was not invented in 2025. Paxton's petition says SB 10 uses "the same version of the Ten Commandments previously declared constitutional" in Van Orden v. Perry, the 2005 Supreme Court case over the granite monument on the Texas Capitol grounds pictured at the top of this page. Compare the bill to the stone and the lines match.

The State Is Also Asking Galveston to Pay Its Lawyers

The petition's prayer for relief asks for more than posters on walls. Along with temporary and permanent injunctions, it asks the court to declare the trustees' delay unlawful and to "award attorney's fees and costs." The Daily News reported a bench trial is set for June 14, 2027, so that question is still open.

At the Oct. 1 hearing, the state's lawyer, Assistant Attorney General William Farrell, did not hide his frustration. "SB 10 is the law of the land, so I really don't know why we're continuing to argue about this. It's been upheld. There is no basis to not follow the law," he said, as KERA and Houston Public Media reported.

Is the Fight Over the Law Itself Finished?

Not yet. In April, the full Fifth Circuit reversed the San Antonio injunction in Nathan v. Alamo Heights ISD, finding the law does not violate the First Amendment on its face. FindLaw reported the vote as 9 to 8. The majority wrote that the law "punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason."

In August, the families in that case, represented by the ACLU and its allies, asked the Supreme Court to step in. The Court has not said whether it will. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, their petition even cites the Galveston standoff as proof that the families' injuries are "actual or imminent."

Other Texas Districts Are Being Told Not to Wait

Galveston is not the end of this. On Oct. 9, Texas Values president Jonathan Saenz urged every district in the state to hang donated posters now. "School districts do not have the authority to put Texas law on hold for any reason," he said, as Texas Politics reported. The group says it will supply qualifying posters at no cost. Under subsection (d), any district that receives such an offer must take it.

Middleton praised the ruling. "Our laws are not optional or suggestions," he said in a statement quoted by the Daily News. "Don't lie, don't kill, don't steal," he added, calling those "things students should learn." He is also on the Nov. 3 ballot for attorney general against Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson, who told The Texas Tribune that Middleton's views on religion in government make him "not fit to be the top legal officer of the state."

What Monday Means for Every School Board in Texas

Trustee Beeton said the board "did everything we could to honor the First Amendment." But the statute the board resisted had already put the state's lawyers and the state's money between the district and any lawsuit over compliance. The posters cost the district nothing. The resistance cost it a $25,000 insurance deductible, and the state still wants its attorney's fees on top of that.

That math now sits in front of every board in Texas. Unless the Supreme Court takes up the Nathan petition and rules otherwise, the law is the law, and Galveston just showed what it costs to test it.

Top photo: The Ten Commandments granite monument on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol in Austin, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Van Orden v. Perry (2005). Its text matches the version SB 10 requires in classrooms. (Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)