Abington School District v. Schempp

Abington School District v. Schempp
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 27–28, 1963 Decided June 17, 1963
Full case name	School District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania, et al. v. Edward Schempp, et al.; Murray, et al. v. Curlett, et al., Constituting the Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City
Citations	374 U.S. 203 (more) 83 S. Ct. 1560; 10 L. Ed. 2d 844; 1963 U.S. LEXIS 2611
Prior history	Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Holding
Sanctioned and organized Bible reading in public schools in the United States is unconstitutional.
Court membership
Case opinions
Majority	Clark, joined by Warren, Black, White, Douglas, Goldberg, Harlan, Brennan
Concurrence	Douglas
Concurrence	Brennan
Concurrence	Goldberg, joined by Harlan
Dissent	Stewart
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV

Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided 8–1 in favor of the respondent, Edward Schempp, and declared school-sponsored Bible reading in public schools in the United States to be unconstitutional. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during this case was Earl Warren.

The Abington case began when Edward Schempp, a Unitarian Universalist and a resident of Abington Township, Pennsylvania, filed suit against the Abington School District in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to prohibit the enforcement of a Pennsylvania state law that required his children, specifically Ellory Schempp, to hear and sometimes read portions of the Bible as part of their public school education. That law (24 Pa. Stat. 15-1516, as amended, Pub. Law 1928) required that "[a]t least ten verses from the Holy Bible [be] read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day." Schempp specifically contended that the statute violated his and his family's rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Pennsylvania law, like that of four other states, included a statute compelling school districts to perform Bible readings in the mornings before class. Twenty-five states had laws allowing "optional" Bible reading, with the remainder having no laws supporting or rejecting Bible reading. In eleven of those states with laws supportive of Bible reading or state-sponsored prayer, the state courts had declared them unconstitutional.