Abington School District v. Schempp

Summary

A Pennsylvania statute required that at least ten verses of the Holy Bible be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school day. At Abington Senior High School, outside Philadelphia, the verses were broadcast over the public-address system each morning and followed by the Lord's Prayer, recited in unison. Edward Schempp and his wife Sidney, Unitarians whose children attended the school, sued to stop the practice. A three-judge federal court ruled for them in 1959; after the legislature added a provision excusing children on a parent's written request, the court heard the case again and again held the statute invalid. In the companion case, Murray v. Curlett, Madalyn Murray and her son William challenged a 1905 Baltimore rule providing for the reading of a Bible chapter or the Lord's Prayer at opening exercises, and the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld the rule by four votes to three. The question was whether such state-required devotional exercises in public schools violate the Establishment Clause as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The families argued that reading Scripture and reciting a prayer were religious observances that the state organized, and that excusal did not remove the pressure on children to conform. The school authorities argued that the exercises served secular purposes such as promoting moral values, countering materialism and teaching literature, that participation was voluntary, and that forbidding them would establish a religion of secularism and disregard the free exercise of the majority. On 17 June 1963 the Court held the practices unconstitutional, eight to one. Justice Clark reviewed the Court's cases from Cantwell and Everson through Engel and stated a test: a law must have a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion. The exercises, prescribed as part of the school day and conducted by teachers, were religious ceremonies and failed that test; the excusal provision did not cure them. Clark added that the state may not show hostility to religion and that objective study of the Bible and religion as part of a secular education remains permitted. Justice Goldberg, joined by Justice Harlan, agreed but warned that an untutored devotion to neutrality could produce hostility to religion, and that the Constitution permits many forms of accommodation. Justice Stewart dissented, arguing that the records were too thin, that a refusal to permit the exercises might itself burden the free exercise of those who wanted them, and that the cases should be remanded to learn whether any child was in fact coerced. The library text contains Clark's opinion, Goldberg's concurrence and Stewart's dissent; the concurrences of Justices Douglas and Brennan are not included, and notes are left out. Clark's purpose-and-effect test was later combined with an entanglement inquiry in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022) the Court said it had abandoned Lemon in favor of reference to historical practices and understandings. William J. Murray III later became a Christian and a Baptist minister.

Top Lessons

• The purpose-and-effect test

  Clark distilled earlier decisions into two questions: what is the purpose of the law, and what is its primary effect? If either is to advance or inhibit religion, the law exceeds what the Establishment Clause allows. The test gave lower courts a working method and later became the first two prongs of the Lemon test.

• Devotion versus study

  The Court distinguished between conducting a religious exercise and teaching about religion. Clark wrote that a complete education may include comparative religion and the Bible's literary and historic qualities, so long as the study is presented objectively. The distinction shaped how public schools have approached the Bible ever since.

• Neutrality and its critics

  All the opinions speak of neutrality, but they mean different things by it. Clark understood it as a government that neither sponsors nor opposes religion. Goldberg warned that rigid neutrality could slide into a brooding devotion to the secular. Stewart argued that forbidding exercises some families wanted might itself place the state's weight on one side of private choice.

• Coercion, consent and the majority

  Pennsylvania allowed children to be excused, and most families apparently welcomed the exercises. The majority held that excusal did not save a state-organized ceremony and that constitutional rights do not depend on majority vote. Stewart answered that the right question was whether any child was actually coerced, which required fuller records.

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Medical Lens

The opinions address devotional Bible reading and prayer in public schools and raise no medical or health questions.