Supreme Court Rules Against Bible Reading/prayer in Public Schools

1963 U.Southward. Supreme Courtroom case ending required prayer and Bible reading in public schools

United states of america Supreme Court case

Abington School District five. Schempp
Supreme Courtroom of the United states of america
Argued Feb 27–28, 1963 Decided June 17, 1963
Full case name	Schoolhouse District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania, et al. v. Edward Schempp, et al.; Murray, et al. v. Curlett, et al., Constituting the Board of Schoolhouse Commissioners of Baltimore City
Citations	374 U.S. 203 (more than) 83 S. Ct. 1560; 10 L. Ed. 2nd 844; 1963 U.S. LEXIS 2611
Instance history
Prior	Schempp v. School District of Abington Township, 201 F. Supp. 815 (E.D. Pa. 1962); probable jurisdiction noted, 371 U.S. 807 (1962). Murray v. Curlett, 228 Md. 239, 179 A.2d 698 (1962); cert. granted, 371 U.S. 809 (1962).
Property
Legally sanctioned or officially mandated Bible reading and prayer in public schools is unconstitutional.
Courtroom membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black· William O. Douglas Tom C. Clark· John M. Harlan 2 William J. Brennan Jr.· Potter Stewart Byron White· Arthur Goldberg
Case opinions
Majority	Clark, joined by Warren, Black, Douglas, Harlan, Brennan, White, Goldberg
Concurrence	Douglas
Concurrence	Brennan
Concurrence	Goldberg, joined by Harlan
Dissent	Stewart
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. I, 14

Abington School District five. Schempp , 374 U.S. 203 (1963), was a U.s.a. Supreme Court case in which the Court decided 8–1 in favor of the respondent, Edward Schempp on behalf of his son Ellery Schempp, and alleged that school-sponsored Bible reading in public schools in the Usa was unconstitutional.^[1]

Background [edit]

Origin of instance [edit]

The Abington example began when Edward Schempp, a Unitarian Universalist and a resident of Abington Township, Pennsylvania, filed suit against the Abington Schoolhouse Commune in the Us District Courtroom for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to prohibit the enforcement of a Pennsylvania state law that required his children, specifically Ellery Schempp, to hear and sometimes read portions of the Bible as office of their public school education.^[2] That law (24 Pa. Stat. fifteen-1516, every bit amended, Pub. Law 1928) required that "[a]t least 10 verses from the Holy Bible [be] read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each schoolhouse 24-hour interval." Schempp specifically contended that the statute violated his and his family's rights under the Outset and Fourteenth Amendments.^[1]

Pennsylvania police force, like that of iv other states, included a statute compelling school districts to perform Bible readings in the mornings earlier classes. Twenty-five states had laws allowing "optional" Bible reading, with the remainder of us having no laws supporting or rejecting Bible reading. In eleven of those states with laws supportive of Bible reading or country-sponsored prayer, the country courts had declared the laws to be unconstitutional.^[3]

A related case was that brought past Madalyn Murray O'Pilus, mother of plaintiff William J. Murray Iii (b. 1946), who filed suit against the local school organisation in Murray v. Curlett to prohibit compulsory prayer and Bible reading in public schools. In 1963, she founded the group American Atheists (originally known equally the Society of Separationists). The Murray case was consolidated with Schempp's case on appeal to the Supreme Court.

District courtroom arguments [edit]

During the commencement trial in federal district courtroom, Edward Schempp and his children testified equally to specific religious doctrines purveyed by a literal reading of the Bible "which were contrary to the religious behavior which they held and to their familial teaching" (177 F. Supp. 398, 400). The children testified that all of the doctrines to which they referred were read to them at diverse times equally office of the exercises. Edward Schempp testified at the second trial that he had considered having his children excused from omnipresence at the exercises but decided against it for several reasons, including his belief that the children's relationships with their teachers and classmates would be adversely affected.

District court ruling [edit]

The district court ruled in Schempp's favor, and struck down the Pennsylvania statute. The school district appealed the ruling. While that appeal was pending, the Pennsylvania legislature amended the statute to permit children to be excused from the exercises upon the written request of their parents. This change did not satisfy Schempp, however, and he connected his action confronting the school district, charging that the subpoena of the police did not change its nature as an unconstitutional establishment of religion. Because of the change in the constabulary, the Supreme Court had responded to the schoolhouse district's entreatment past vacating the kickoff ruling and remanding the case to the district courtroom. The district court again found for Schempp. The school district appealed to the Supreme Court once more, and, on appeal, the instance was consolidated with a similar Maryland case launched by O'Hair.^[4]

The district courtroom ruling in the 2d trial, in hitting downwardly the practices and the statute requiring them, fabricated specific findings of fact that the children's attendance at Abington Senior High Schoolhouse was compulsory, and that the practice of reading 10 verses from the Bible was likewise compelled past law. It also found that:

The reading of the verses, even without comment, possesses a devotional and religious character and constitutes in upshot a religious observance. The devotional and religious nature of the morning exercises is fabricated all the more apparent past the fact that the Bible reading is followed immediately by a recital in unison past the pupils of the Lord'south Prayer. The fact that some pupils, or theoretically all pupils, might be excused from attendance at the exercises does not mitigate the obligatory nature of the anniversary for ... Section 1516 ... unequivocally requires the exercises to be held every schoolhouse solar day in every school in the Commonwealth. The exercises are held in the school buildings and perforce are conducted by and under the potency of the local school authorities and during school sessions. Since the statute requires the reading of the 'Holy Bible,' a Christian certificate, the practice ... prefers the Christian religion. The record demonstrates that it was the intention of ... the Commonwealth ... to introduce a religious ceremony into the public schools of the Commonwealth. (201 F. Supp., at 819; quoted in 374 U.S. 203 (1963))

Precedents for case [edit]

The Courtroom explicitly upheld Engel v. Vitale, in which the Court ruled that the sanctioning of a prayer by the school amounted to a violation of the Institution Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an institution of religion." The Abington court held that in organizing a reading of the Bible, the schoolhouse was conducting "a religious exercise," and "that cannot be done without violating the 'neutrality' required of the State by the rest of power between individual, church and state that has been struck by the First Amendment" (374 U.S. 203 (1963)). Over the previous ii decades, the Supreme Court, by incorporating specific rights into the Due Procedure Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, had steadily increased the extent to which rights contained in United States Nib of Rights were applied against united states of america.^[a] Abington was a continuation of this trend with regard to the Establishment of Religion Clause of the Beginning Subpoena, and specifically built upon Supreme Courtroom precedents in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.South. 296 (1940), Everson v. Board of Didactics, 330 U.Due south. 1 (1947), and McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948).

Opinions of the Court [edit]

The Supreme Courtroom granted certiorari in order to settle the persistent and vigorous protests resulting from its previous decision in Engel five. Vitale regarding religion in schools.^[5] Henry W. Sawyer argued the instance for Schempp.

Decision [edit]

The Supreme Court upheld the District Courtroom's decision and found the Pennsylvania prayer statute unconstitutional past virtue of the facts in the case, as well as the clear line of precedent established past the Supreme Court. In writing the opinion of the Court, Justice Tom C. Clark stated, "This Courtroom has decisively settled that the Get-go Amendment's mandate [in the Establishment Clause] has been made wholly applicative to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment ... in a serial of cases since Cantwell.^{[6] [7]}

What was unexpected, however, were the ideas expressed in the second portion of Justice Clark's opinion written for the majority. The Courtroom's recognition of religious ideals as valuable to the culture of the United States in that opinion are by and large not cited much by either side of the church-state debate when discussing the case and the effect it had on the United States.^{[ commendation needed ]} His opening thoughts explicitly spelled out that view in past jurisprudence with cases similar to Abington 5. Schempp.

Clark connected that the Court was of the feeling that no matter the religious nature of the citizenry, the authorities at all levels, every bit required by the Constitution, must remain neutral in matters of religion "while protecting all, prefer[ring] none, and disparag[ing] none." The Courtroom had conspicuously rejected "the contention by many that the Establishment Clause forbade but governmental preference of i religion over some other."^[8]

Citing Justice Hugo Blackness in Torcaso v. Watkins, Justice Clark added, "Nosotros repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person 'to profess a belief or disbelief in any faith.' Neither tin information technology constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as confronting non-believers, and neither can information technology aid those religions based on a belief in the being of God equally against those religions founded on dissimilar beliefs." Such prohibited behavior was self-evident in the Pennsylvania law requiring Bible reading (and allowing recitation of the Lord's Prayer) in its public schools. The Court recognized the value of such ideal neutrality from lessons of history when government and religion were either fully fused or cooperative with one some other and religious liberty was nonexistent or seriously curtailed.

Brennan'south concurrence [edit]

Justice Brennan filed a lengthy and historically significant concurrence, taking seventy-iii pages to elaborate his ideas nearly what the Framers intended in the formation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, gauging the value of religion in American culture, reviewing legal precedents, and suggesting a form for future church building-country cases. Brennan focused on the history of the Establishment Clause to counter numerous critics of the Court'southward Engel decision, who pointed out that prayer in public schools, as well as in many other areas of public life, was a longstanding practise going back to the framing of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. He professed to be aware of the "ambiguities in the historical record",^[9] and felt a mod-day interpretation of the Start Amendment was warranted. In defense of that approach, Brennan stated:

Whatever Jefferson or Madison would have idea of Bible reading or the recital of the Lord'southward Prayer in ... public schools ..., our use of the history ... must limit itself to broad purposes, non specific practices. ... [T]he Baltimore and Abington schools offend the First Subpoena because they sufficiently threaten in our day those substantive evils the fear of which called forth the Establishment Clause. ... [O]ur estimation of the First Amendment must necessarily exist responsive to the much more highly charged nature of religious questions in contemporary society. A as well literal quest for the advice of the Founding Fathers upon the problems of these cases seems to me futile and misdirected.

In reply to critics of a wide interpretation of the prohibitions confronting regime in the realm of religion, Brennan said, "nil in the text of the Establishment Clause supports the view that the prevention of the setting up of an official church building was meant to be the full extent of the prohibitions confronting official involvements in religion".

In the 3rd department of his exhaustive concurrence, Justice Brennan charted the form that led to the incorporation of the Outset Amendment's religion clauses by style of answering the charge of Abington Township's counsel that Pennsylvania'southward Bible reading statute was a state issue, outside the purview of the federal courtroom system, including that of the Supreme Courtroom. He labeled the daily recitals of the Lord'due south Prayer and reading of the Bible as "quite [articulate] breaches of the command of the Institution Clause". He noted the long history of such practices, even before the "founding of our Democracy". Additionally, he stated that most of those who demanded reading of the Bible and prayer in schools were hoping to serve "broader goals than compelling formal worship of God or fostering church attendance". He cited the 1858 words of the Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Teaching, who saw the Bible as aptly suited to "educational activity the noblest principles of virtue, morality, patriotism, and good order".

Justice Brennan took keen pains to as well bear witness that many states, such as S Dakota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Ohio and Massachusetts, had already enacted and revoked laws similar to Pennsylvania'due south by the first one-half of the 20th century. In addition, many political leaders including attorneys general and presidents like Ulysses Due south. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt insisted that "matters of religion be left to family altars, churches and private schools" and "[It] is non our business to take the Protestant Bible or the Catholic Vulgate or the Talmud read in [public] schools" .

Brennan's concurrence also recognized the plurality of religious thought in the nation as basis enough for restriction of church and state relations. He cited this lack of appreciation of that pluralism as the "basic flaw" of Pennsylvania's Bible reading statute and Abington Township'south defense force of it:

There are persons in every community—often deeply devout—to whom any version of the Judaeo-Christian Bible is offensive. There are others whose reverence for the Holy Scriptures demands private report or reflection and to whom public reading or recitation is sacrilegious.... To such persons it is not the fact of using the Bible in the public schools, nor the content of any particular version, that is offensive, only the mode in which information technology is used.

Stewart'due south dissent [edit]

Justice Potter Stewart filed the only dissent in the instance. In information technology, he was critical of both the lower courtroom opinions and the decision the Supreme Court had reached regarding them. He wished to remand the case to lower courts for further proceedings.

Stewart had dissented in Engel 5. Vitale and viewed the doctrine relied on in that case as implausible, given the long history of government religious practice in the United States, including the fact that the Supreme Court opens its ain sessions with the declaration, "God Salvage this Honorable Court" and that Congress opens its sessions with prayers, amid many other examples. Stewart believed that such practice fit with the nation's long history of permitting free exercise of religious practices, even in the public sphere.

He declared the cases consolidated with Schempp as "and so fundamentally deficient as to make impossible an informed or responsible decision of the constitutional issues presented"—specifically, of whether the Establishment Clause was violated. As to the intent and telescopic of the religion clauses of the Kickoff Subpoena:

Information technology is, I think, a beguiling oversimplification to regard the [organized religion clauses] equally establishing a unmarried constitutional standard of "separation of church and state", which can exist applied in every case to delineate the required boundaries betwixt government and religion.... As a matter of history, the Outset Subpoena was adopted solely equally a limitation upon the newly created National Government. The events leading to its adoption strongly suggest that the Establishment Clause was primarily an attempt to insure that Congress not only would be powerless to establish a national church, but would besides be unable to interfere with existing state establishments. ... So matters stood until the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, or more accurately, until this Court's decision in Cantwell....

He stated his agreement with the doctrine of the Fourteenth Subpoena'south embrace and application of the Bill of Rights, but pointed out the irony of such an amendment "designed to leave the States gratuitous to go their own style should now have become a brake upon their autonomy".^[10]

Other critics of the Courtroom'southward findings in Abington v. Schempp often quote the post-obit extract from Justice Stewart's opinion:^[10]

If religious exercises are held to exist an impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed in an bogus and land-created disadvantage.... And a refusal to let religious exercises thus is seen, not every bit the realization of country neutrality, but rather every bit the establishment of a organized religion of secularism, or at least, as governmental support of the beliefs of those who call back that religious exercises should be conducted only in private.

Subsequent developments [edit]

The public was divided in reaction to the Court'south conclusion; the decision has sparked persistent and ongoing criticism from proponents of prayer in schoolhouse. In 1964, Life magazine declared Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the female parent of the plaintiff in one of the associated cases, to be "the most hated woman in America."^[11]

Newspapers were no exception. The Washington Evening Star, for example, criticized the decision, declaring that "God and faith accept all simply been driven from the public schools. What remains? Volition the baccalaureate service and Christmas carols be the next to go? Don't bet against information technology."^[12] In contrast, The New York Times was more accepting of the Court's ruling. The paper printed significant portions of the opinions with no significant comments, either supportive or critical.^[thirteen] Opponents characterized the decision as the one which "kicked God and prayer out of the schools".^[14]

The views of various religious entities on the decision split between mainline Protestants and Jews, who in general strongly supported the determination, and evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics, who strongly opposed the decision. Speaking from the evangelical perspective, Baton Graham said, "[i]north my opinion ... the Supreme Court ... is incorrect. ... Lxxx pct of the American people want Bible reading and prayer in the schools. Why should a majority be and then severely penalized ...?"^[15] The mainline denominations, with the exception of the Roman Cosmic Church building, expressed less critical opinions of the verdict. Some considered it to support religious liberty because information technology limited governmental authority in the sphere of public schools.^[16]

The U.s.a. Congress reacted by drafting more than 150 resolutions to overturn the ruling by a constitutional amendment.^[17] Abington v. Schempp was used as precedent for similar cases such as Board of Pedagogy five. Allen and Lemon five. Kurtzman in the decades that followed. The 3-part Lemon examination had its basis in the jurisprudence of Abington 5. Schempp. Under the test, the constitutionality of a given church-state constabulary is weighed by 3 criteria: whether a law has a non-secular purpose, advances or inhibits faith, or results in excessive government entanglement with religion.

See as well [edit]

• Edgerton Bible Example
• List of United States Supreme Courtroom cases, book 374
• School prayer

Notes [edit]

1. ^ The process of incorporation (too known as "nationalization") of the Us Bill of Rights began with cases Missouri Pacific Railway Co. five. Country of Nebraska Lath of Transportation, 164 U.S. 403 (1896) and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. City of Chicago, 166 U.Southward. 226 (1897) pitting the railroads confronting the government over just compensation for the taking of individual belongings, due all persons (and corporations) nether the Fifth Subpoena. Next was First Subpoena Freedom of Speech, in Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U.Due south. 380 (1927). Freedom of Religion was first incorporated (albeit in dictum) in Hamilton 5. Regents of the Academy of California, 293 U.S. 245 (1934), and made official in Cantwell five. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940). Finally in Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), the courtroom ruled that a country could not write or sanction an official prayer to be read by students at schoolhouse. For a more detailed history of Incorporation, encounter Incorporation (Bill of Rights).

References [edit]

Citations [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b} Abington Schoolhouse Commune five. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963).
2. ^ Dierenfield, Bruce J. "The Well-nigh Hated Woman in America: Madalyn Murray and the Crusade Against School Prayer"], Journal of Supreme Court History 32, no.1 (2007), 62-84
3. ^ Boston 1993, p. 101
4. ^ Boston 1993, p. 106
5. ^ White & Zimmerman 1990, p. 70
6. ^ Eastland 1993, p. 151
7. ^ Davis 1991, p. 91
8. ^ Eastland 1993, p. 59
9. ^ Quoting author in Davis 1991, p. 77
10. ^ ^{a b} Eastland 1993, p. 165
11. ^ Madalyn Murray O'Hair Biography , retrieved July twenty, 2013
12. ^ Eastland 1993, p. 165
13. ^ Lewis 1963, p. xvi
14. ^ Wright 2008, p. 96
15. ^ Billy Graham voices shock over decision. (June xviii, 1963). New York Times. p. 17.
16. ^ Dugan 1963, p. 18
17. ^ O'Hair 1974, p. 55

Sources [edit]

• "Abington School District five. Schempp". Rydal-Meadowbrook Borough Association. Archived from the original on October xiii, 2013.
• Billy Graham voices stupor over decision. (June 18, 1963). New York Times. p. 17.
• Boston, Robert (1993). Why the religious correct is wrong: About separation of church building and state (1st ed.). Buffalo: Prometheus Books. ISBN0-87975-834-1.
• Davis, Derek (1991). Original Intent: Master Justice Rehnquist and the Course of American Church building-State Relations . Buffalo: Prometheus Books. ISBN9780879756499.
• Dugan, George (June eighteen, 1963). "Churches divided, with most in favor". New York Times. p. xviii.
• Eastland, Terry (1993). Religious Liberty in the Supreme Court . Washington: Ethics and Public Policy Middle. Eerdmans Pub Co. ISBN978-0-89633-178-five.
• * Laats, Adam. "Our schools, our country: American evangelicals, public schools, and the Supreme Courtroom decisions of 1962 and 1963." Journal of religious history 36.3 (2012): 319-334.
• O'Pilus, Madalyn (1974). Freedom Under Siege. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, Inc.
• Lewis, Anthony (June 18, 1963). "Authorities must be neutral in religion, majority asserts". New York Times. p. sixteen.
• Licciardello, Carman (1994). Raising the Standard: Reclaiming Our Earth for God. Nashville: Sparrow Press.
• McWilliams, Peter (1993). Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Gild (1st ed.). Los Angeles: Prelude Press. ISBN0-931580-53-half dozen.
• Tushnet, Mark (2008). I dissent: Swell Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Courtroom Cases. Boston: Beacon Press. pp. 167–178. ISBN978-0-8070-0036-vi.
• White, Ronald C.; Zimmerman, Albright G (1990). An Unsettled Arena: Faith and the Nib of Rights . Thou Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. ISBN0-8028-0465-nine.
• Wright, Russell Thou. (2008). Chronology of educational activity in the Usa . McFarland Co. ISBN978-0-7864-2502-0.

External links [edit]

• Works related to Abington School District 5. Schempp (374 U.Due south. 203) at Wikisource
• Text of Abington Township School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963) is available from:CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress OpenJurist Oyez (oral argument audio)
• An article in the encyclopedia of civil liberties in the Us Abington Township School Commune 5. Schempp author Timothy L. Hall
• Casey Scott McKay, "Tactics, Strategies, & Battles – Oh My!: Perseverance of the Perpetual Trouble Pertaining to Preaching to Public School Pupils & Why it Persists," University of Massachusetts Police force Review: Vol. 8: Iss. two, Article three (2013).

rouillardcauther.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abington_School_District_v._Schempp