Simpson Thacher, alongside the ACLU, ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, secured a victory in a federal district court in San Antonio, Texas on behalf of families in a dozen school districts challenging the state’s recently enacted law that requires all public school classrooms to permanently display a version of the Ten Commandments. The court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the defendant districts to remove Ten Commandments displays by Dec. 1, and prohibiting them from posting new displays.
In his November 18, 2025 order, District Court Judge Orlando L. Garcia wrote: “[D]isplaying the Ten Commandments on the wall of a public school classroom as set forth in Senate Bill 10 violates the Establishment Clause.”
The order came in the case Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District, which was filed after the defendant school districts installed or were about to install Ten Commandments posters, despite District Court Judge Fred Biery’s Aug. 20 order in a separate lawsuit, Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights ISD, in which he called the Texas law requiring the displays “plainly unconstitutional.”
The Simpson Thacher team included Jonathan Youngwood, Janet Gochman, Noah Gimbel, Jordan Krieger, Avia Gridi, Kristen Crow, Noah Manthorne Huffman, Victoria Wang, and Griselda Cabrera.
The case has been covered by publications including CBS News, CNN, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post.