School District of Abington Township v. Schempp

The case of School District of Abington Township v. Schempp was consolidated with the case of Murray v. Curlett and heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963. These two companion cases were from Pennsylvania and Maryland, respectively. The issue in both was the constitutionality of prayer and Bible reading in the public schools.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had enacted a statute that required “At least ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day.” The King James, the Douay Revised, and the Revised Standard versions of the Bible and the Jewish Holy Scripture were texts that were read. After the reading of the Bible, the Lord's Prayer was to be recited. Children were permitted to be excused from these activities with written permission of their parent.

The Schempp family regularly attended the Unitarian Church in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Edward Schempp, the father, brought suit, contending that his rights under the First Amendment were being violated by continuing enforcement in the schools of the statute mentioned above.

The second case originated in Baltimore, Maryland. The Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City had adopted a rule pursuant to the code of Maryland, which provided that each school in the city “would read a chapter from the bible and/or recite the Lord's Prayer, these activities were to be conducted without comment.” Ms. Madalyn Murray, a professed atheist, filed on behalf of her son William a suit claiming her rights under the First and Fourteenth amendments were violated. As in the Pennsylvania case, the children could be excused upon request of the parents.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that both of the practices violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Using a historical context, the Court explained how religion was interwoven into the American culture. “The history of man is inseparable from the history of religion” as “we are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” Before ruling, the Court reviewed the history of religion and the U.S. Constitution. The Court explained that some “twenty-three years” before, in 1940, the Supreme Court had ruled, in Cantwell v. Connecticut, that states were required to recognize the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment under the Liberty Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court then addressed the interrelationship of the two religious clauses of the First Amendment: the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. It cited the opinion of Justice Roberts from Cantwell,