Video: 'School District of Abington Township v. Schempp Case Brief Summary | Law Case Explained'

(Monday, June 17, 1963) — The U.S. Supreme Court, in Abington School District v. Schempp, today struck down, 8-1, rules requiring the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer or reading of Biblical verses in public schools.

The Abington case began when Edward Schempp, a Unitarian Universalist and a resident of Abington Township, Pennsylvania, filed suit against the Abington School District in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to prohibit the enforcement of a Pennsylvania state law that required his children, specifically Ellery Schempp, to hear and sometimes read portions of the Bible as part of their public school education.

Video: 'Abington vs. Schempp - History Fair 2012'

That law (24 Pa. Stat. 15-1516, as amended, Pub. Law 1928) required that “[a]t least ten verses from the Holy Bible [be] read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day.”

Schempp specifically contended that the statute violated his and his family’s rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

The Schempp case was not the decision that banned prayer in American public schools, which had been rendered in Engel v. Vitale on June 25, 1962.