This Article examines the resurgence of religion in public education through recent state legislation, with a particular focus on Texas’s groundbreaking school chaplain law, SB 763. Enacted in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton, SB 763 authorizes public schools to employ unlicensed chaplains to provide counseling and mental health services. While proponents claim the law addresses resource gaps, its critics warn of religious coercion and violations of the Establishment Clause. This Article centers around one state’s school chaplain bill, but its analyses are broadly relevant as many other states have followed Texas’s lead by introducing similar chaplain bills.

Drawing on legislative history and constitutional doctrine, this Article argues that SB 763 is constitutionally suspect on multiple fronts. It analyzes the statute under the Kennedy “history and tradition” test and the Lee v. Weisman coercion framework and contends that the law fails the Establishment Clause’s neutrality requirement. The Article also situates SB 763 alongside Texas’s Ten Commandments and school prayer bills to illustrate broader legislative patterns that threaten the church-state divide. In anticipating likely legal challenges, this article offers a roadmap for evaluating SB 763’s constitutionality and cautions against the broader implications of embedding chaplaincy into public education.