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Abington
School District v. Schempp
374
U.S. 203 (1963)
The
Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons Religious Institutions
Group gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the
Ethics and Public Policy Center which provided the following case commentary taken from Terry Eastland, Religious
Liberty in the Supreme Court: The Cases That Define
the Debate over Church and State (1993).
The
year after its unpopular decision in Engel v. Vitale,
the Court reiterated the principles of that case in striking
down state-sponsored Bible reading and recitation of the
Lord's Prayer in public schools in two cases, arising from
Pennsylvania and Maryland. In No. 142, a Pennsylvania statute
required that at least ten Bible verses be read, without
comment, at the start of each public school day; a child
could be excused from the Bible reading upon the written
request of his parents. In No. 119, a rule adopted by the
Board of School Commissioners in Baltimore provided for
devotions, also at the start of the school day, that consisted
primarily of reading, without comment, a chapter from the
Bible, or recitation of the Lord's Prayer, or both; the
rule was later amended to permit children to be excused
from the exercise upon parental request. Unitarians challenged
the Pennsylvania statute, atheists the Baltimore rule. The
Pennsylvania law was deemed unconstitutional in federal
district court. The challenge to the Baltimore rule was
dismissed by a Maryland trial court, a judgment then affirmed
by the state's appeals court.
The
Pennsylvania case was Abington School District v. Schempp,
the Maryland case Murray v. Curlett. The two were
combined in the Court's analysis and decision and are typically
referred to as Abington v. Schempp.
The
opinion of the Court, written by Justice Tom C. Clark, articulated
two parts of what eight years later would become the three-part
Lemon test for determining the constitutionality
of a challenged government action: "[W]hat are the purpose
and the primary effect of the enactment? If either is the
advancement or inhibition of religion, then the enactment
exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed
by the Constitution" (The third part was set forth in 1970
in Walz v. Tax Commission, Case 12.) As in the Engel
case, Justice Potter Stewart found himself alone in dissent.
Schempp
generated a lengthy concurrence by Justice William Brennan
that is noteworthy for its comprehensive treatment of religious-liberty
issues. It is presented here, as is Stewart's dissent. The
editorial responses to Schempp are from the (Washington)
Evening Star, the New York Times, and The
Christian Century.
Participating
in Abington v. Schempp, decided June 17, 1963 were
Chief Justice Earl Warren and Associate Justices Hugo L.
Black, William J. Brennan, Jr., Tom C. Clark, William O.
Douglas, Arthur J. Goldberg, John M. Harlan II, Potter Stewart,
and Byron R. White.
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