A lawsuit against Galveston Independent School District over its refusal to display the Ten Commandments will return to state court after a federal judge denied the district’s motion to dismiss and ruled the case does not belong in federal court.
Attorney General Ken Paxton originally filed the lawsuit in November 2025, after the Galveston ISD school board voted not to comply with a state law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments.
Later that month, a federal judge temporarily blocked 25 Texas school districts from displaying the Ten Commandments while litigation challenging the law moved forward. Galveston ISD was not among the districts covered by that injunction.
This month, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown ruled that Texas’ lawsuit against Galveston ISD should be remanded to state court because it raises only questions of state law.
Brown wrote that the state’s complaint asserts only state-law claims and does not present a federal question on its face.
“The plaintiff’s cause of action against the defendants is a purely state-law claim,” Brown wrote.
Brown also found that the case failed to satisfy any one of the four factors courts consider when determining whether a state-law claim belongs in federal court. Those factors include whether the lawsuit necessarily raises a federal issue, whether the parties genuinely dispute that federal issue, whether resolving the issue is important to the federal system as a whole, and whether exercising federal jurisdiction would disrupt the balance between federal and state judicial responsibilities.
Brown concluded that the lawsuit raises no federal issue that would justify federal jurisdiction. He also denied Galveston ISD’s motion to dismiss as moot because the case is being returned to state court.
The case will now return to the 122nd Judicial District Court in Galveston County, where the litigation will continue.
