Abington School Dist. v. Schempp
The Supreme Court struck down state laws in Pennsylvania and Maryland that required public schools to open the day with Bible readings and recitation of the Lord's Prayer, ruling that these were religious exercises the government could not sponsor.
The decision built on the Court's ruling the year before against a state-composed classroom prayer, making clear that officially organized devotional exercises in public schools violate the First Amendment even when students can opt out.
“That is to say that to withstand the strictures of the Establishment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion.”
The Court's core two-part test for evaluating whether a law violates the Establishment Clause.
How it got here: A federal three-judge court struck down Pennsylvania's law and the school board appealed directly to the Supreme Court; Maryland's courts upheld Baltimore's rule on demurrer and the Murrays sought Supreme Court review by certiorari.
The Case in Depth
What happened
In Pennsylvania, a Unitarian family, the Schempps, objected to a state law requiring daily Bible readings and recitation of the Lord's Prayer at their children's public high school, saying it conflicted with their own religious beliefs. In Maryland, Madalyn Murray and her son, both atheists, challenged a Baltimore school board rule requiring similar Bible readings, arguing it violated their freedom of conscience and improperly favored religious belief over non-belief.
The question before the Court
Can public schools open the school day with Bible readings and a group recitation of the Lord's Prayer, even if students may be excused if their parents object?
Why it matters
Millions of American public school students no longer began their school day with state-mandated Bible readings or group prayer. The ruling gave schools, parents, and lawmakers around the country a clear rule for evaluating religious activities in public education: does the practice have a secular purpose and a primary effect that neither promotes nor discourages religion.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision. The Pennsylvania school district's Bible-reading law was struck down and the injunction against it stood, while the Maryland case was sent back to the state's highest court to be decided consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling. The decision ended state-mandated devotional Bible reading and prayer recitation in public schools nationwide, though the Court noted that teaching about religion or the Bible as literature or history remained permissible.
What this does not decide
The Court made clear it was not banning all mention of religion or the Bible in public schools — objective teaching about religion, comparative religion, or the Bible's literary and historical significance remains permissible. The ruling also did not address other forms of government-religion interaction, such as military chaplains, legislative prayers, or tax exemptions for churches.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Douglas
Justice Douglas emphasized that the Establishment Clause forbids not just the government itself conducting religious exercises but also the use of any public funds or facilities to strengthen a church's ability to gain and keep adherents. He argued that even a small amount of public financial support for a religious exercise is unconstitutional, regardless of the amount, because it is the use of public resources for religious ends that matters.
Concurrence — Justice Brennan
Justice Brennan wrote a lengthy concurrence tracing the history of the Establishment Clause's application to the states and surveying prior cases distinguishing permissible accommodation from forbidden establishment. He argued that devotional Bible reading and prayer have always been essentially religious in purpose and effect, that excusal provisions do not cure an establishment violation, and that the excusal procedure itself may unconstitutionally burden free exercise by stigmatizing dissenting students.
Concurrence — Justice Goldberg
Justice Goldberg, joined by Justice Harlan, cautioned against interpreting neutrality so rigidly that it becomes hostility toward religion. He stressed that government may still acknowledge religion's role in society, permit military chaplains, and allow teaching about religion, and that the challenged exercises crossed the line only because of their direct, compelled, and pervasive religious character in public schools.
Dissent — Justice Stewart
Justice Stewart argued the records in both cases were too undeveloped to responsibly decide whether the Establishment Clause had been violated, and that the majority's rigid 'separation' framework ignored a genuine free exercise interest of families who wanted their children exposed to religious readings. He would have remanded both cases for further evidence on whether the practices, as actually administered with excusal options, coerced any student into participating.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court explained that the Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause, does not require proof that anyone was coerced — a law can violate it simply by advancing or inhibiting religion, regardless of whether it directly forces anyone to act.
- Drawing on its own precedents, the Court set out a two-part test: to survive an Establishment Clause challenge, a law must have a secular legislative purpose, and its primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion.
- Applying this test, the Court found that requiring the reading of Bible verses and recitation of the Lord's Prayer had no secular purpose sufficient to overcome its plainly religious character — the exercises were devotional in nature and were found by the trial court to have been intended as a religious ceremony.
- The Court rejected the argument that letting students be excused from the exercises cured the constitutional problem, reasoning that an excusal option does not change the fact that the government is sponsoring and conducting a religious observance during the compulsory school day.
- The Court also rejected the claim that banning the practices would establish a 'religion of secularism,' clarifying that requiring government neutrality toward religion is not the same as government hostility to religion.
- Because the exercises in both Pennsylvania and Maryland failed this purpose-and-effect test, the Court concluded that the government had crossed from permissible accommodation of religion into forbidden establishment of it.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Engel v. Vitale (370 U.S. 421)
The Court relied on last year's ruling against a state-composed classroom prayer to strike down these Bible-reading and prayer practices too.
Reaffirms Everson v. Board of Education (330 U.S. 1)
The Court reaffirmed Everson's rule that government cannot aid one religion, all religions, or prefer one over another.
Distinguishes Zorach v. Clauson (343 U.S. 306)
The Court distinguished this released-time program, which involved no government-conducted religious exercise, from the practices at issue here.