Abington School District v. Schempp: Ruling and Stewart’s Dissent

In Abington School District v. Schempp, decided June 17, 1963, the United States Supreme Court held that public schools cannot require daily Bible reading or recitation of the Lord’s Prayer as part of the school day. The Court ruled these practices violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, even where students were allowed to be excused on a parent’s written request.¹²

What the Schools Required

A Pennsylvania statute, 24 Pa. Stat. § 15–1516, directed public schools to open each day with the reading of at least ten Bible verses, without comment. Students then stood and recited the Lord’s Prayer together. The Baltimore school board had a parallel rule, requiring opening exercises that included a chapter of the Bible or the Lord’s Prayer.³

Both jurisdictions allowed a student to be excused if a parent or guardian sent a written request. The exercises themselves, though, remained a mandatory part of the official school day.³

Why the Court Struck the Practices Down

The Court’s reasoning rested on the principle that government must remain neutral in matters of religion. The state may not favor believers over non-believers, and it may not lend its authority to any particular faith or religious viewpoint. Organizing devotional exercises inside a public school, the Court concluded, uses state power to promote religion.¹

To measure the practices against the Establishment Clause, the Court applied a two-part standard. A law or practice must have a secular legislative purpose, and its primary effect must neither advance nor inhibit religion.⁴

Bible reading and the Lord’s Prayer failed both parts. Whatever moral-education rationale the states offered, the Court found the exercises religious in character and their primary effect the advancement of religious tenets. Sacred texts were being used for devotional purposes, not for objective study. The opt-out did not save the program, because the state was still organizing a religious exercise.⁴²

What Schempp Allows and Prohibits

The ruling bars public schools from organizing or requiring devotional Bible reading and prayer recitation as part of the official school program. Private religious expression by students is a separate matter and is not what the Court forbade.²

Schools may still teach about religion. Studying the Bible for its historical, literary, or comparative-religion value is permitted as part of a secular educational program. The line the Court drew is between academic study of religion, which is allowed, and state-sponsored religious practice, which is not.⁵

Justice Stewart’s Dissent

Justice Potter Stewart was the lone dissenter. He worried the majority’s approach would read as hostility toward religion rather than neutrality. In his view, the record did not establish that students were actually coerced into participating, and if the exercises were genuinely voluntary they should be permitted under the Free Exercise Clause. Stewart argued a neutral government should accommodate the community’s religious desires instead of excluding religious expression from public schools altogether.³

1
Constitution Annotated. Neutrality Principle and the Establishment Clause
2
Justia. 374 U.S. 203
3
LII / Legal Information Institute. 374 U.S. 203
4
Constitution Annotated. Prayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools
5
U.S. Department of Education. Guidance on Constitutionally Protected Prayer and Religious Expression in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools – Section: Teaching about Religion