school district of abington township, pennsylvania v. schempp

'I was touched by the children here,' said Schempp, grinning upon taking the floor after the skit. Schempp, including one at The First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, where a pair of religious school teachers and children ranging in age from 4 to 13 performed a skit reenacting Schempp's original homeroom protest. He has spent the last few months at events celebrating the fifty-year anniversary of Abington v. Today, Ellery Schempp is a 72-year-old retired physicist from suburban Boston. As Schempp was to note nearly six decades later, the country at the time was barely out of the McCarthy era: Congress had recently added 'under God' to the Pledge of Allegiance all to contrast 'us' with the 'godless Communists.' Within Abington High, administrators stressed conformity, whether it was about the Bible readings, hair styles, or clothing. At the time, not just Pennsylvania, but three dozen other states allowed Bible readings in the public schools through various means, including laws or court decisions. What began as a quiet homeroom protest led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling on June 17, 1963, that declared the requirement of daily Bible readings and prayer in public schools to be unconstitutional.

In 1956, Ellery Schempp, a 16-year-old junior at Abington Senior High in a Philadephia suburb, started a dispute that would pit him against his high school, conservative Christians, and a society eager to paint America as a devout country in its Cold War with the Soviet Union. Ellery Schempp in his living room with a copy of the 1963 Supreme Court decision in Abington v.

School district of abington township, pennsylvania v. schempp