Texas’ Senate Bill 10 was due to take effect on 1 September and was introduced in the wake of similar legislation in Louisiana, which has also been subject to legal challenge.

A US district court judge this week granted a preliminary injunction after ruling that the law likely violates religious clauses of the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

The displays “are likely to pressure the child plaintiffs into religious observance, meditation on, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favoured religious scripture, and into suppressing expression of their own religious or non-religious background and beliefs while at school”, the judge said.

The case was brought by a group of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Unitarian Universalist and non-religious families, including clergy, with children in public schools.

They were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel.

Tommy Buser-Clancy, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas, welcomed the ruling as “a major win that protects the constitutional right to religious freedom for Texas families of all backgrounds”.

Heather L. Weaver, senior counsel for the ACLU’s programme on freedom of religion and belief, said the ruling “ensures that our clients’ schools will remain spaces where all students, regardless of their faith, feel welcomed and can learn without worrying that they do not live up to the state’s preferred religious beliefs”.