Abington V. Schempp Case Study

Abington v. Schempp (1963)

Historical Circumstances:

Abington v. Schempp was an important case regarding the establishment of religion in American schools. Until the late twentieth century, most children were sent to schools which had some sort of religious instruction in their day. The schools taught the morals, values, and beliefs of Christianity in addition to their everyday curriculum. However, as some people began to drift away from Christianity, parents believed this was not fair to the kids and justifiable by the government. They thought public schools should not be affiliated with religion to ensure the freedom of all of the families who send students there. Such is the situation with the 1963 Supreme Court case Abington v. Schempp.

Facts of the Case:

In Pennsylvania, public school students were required to read ten verses from the Bible at the start of their day. In the Abington Township, the Lord’s Prayer was added onto these readings. However, children could be exempt from prayer if their parents chose to not allow it.

The Schempp family, whose kids went to school in the township, followed Unitarianism, and did disagree with some of the ideas in the Bible. However, they did not want their children to miss prayer because they would miss the important announcements that followed. They brought the case to a state court, and the court ruled that prayer in fact did violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Next, they appealed to the Supreme Court.

This case was appealed to the Supreme Court on June 17, 1963. The Court ruled 8-1 against the prayer recitation. This ruling was partially due to the case Engel v. Vitale, where a similar Establishment Clause issue was approached. In both cases, the strict...

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...gain ruled in favor of the Establishment Clause. These cases include Murray v. Baltimore School Board, Epperson v. Arkansas, and Stone v. Graham. It also set the grounds for the case, Lemon v. Kurtzman, which set up the “Lemon Test” for deciding if a religious function is Constitutional or not.

This example of a Supreme Court case shows that the court is not above politics. Even though most Americans, including government officials, practiced some form of Christianity, the judges were not willing to compromise the information in the Constitution for the popular beliefs of individuals. I agree with the Supreme Court in its decision to ban the practice of prayer in public schools. Not only does it violate the Constitution, but it encroaches on our freedom of thought and action. Being excluded from a public classroom because of personal beliefs does not sound just.