In 2023, Texas passed a law aimed at improving K-12 students’ reading. In part, it called for a required reading list to spell out “at least one literary work to be taught in each grade level.”

An initial list named about 300 texts – many of them from the Bible. The Texas State Board of Education then cut the list by 100 readings but still included more than a dozen biblical texts.

Debate over the Bible’s place in classrooms, if any, has erupted since the list was published. At the board’s April 10, 2026, meeting, all nine Republican members preliminarily approved the materials, while the five Democrats rejected the list. The board plans to take a final vote in June.

Critics argue that mandatory Bible readings in public schools would violate the religion clauses in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

American courts have considered similar questions for 150 years – with the answer often depending on a lesson’s purpose.

Courts, Bible and schools

The first reported case on the Bible in U.S. schools was in 1872, when the Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed a ban against religious instruction in public classrooms. Conversely, 50 years later, the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld an ordinance to start school days with readings from the King James Version of the Bible.

Bible reading first reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963, in the case of School District of Abington Township v. Schempp. This case, from Pennsylvania, was consolidated with a similar one from Maryland, called Murray v.........

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