original jurisdiction
supreme court ruling
Abington School District v. Schempp (1963)
Found that school-sponsored Bible reading before class is unconstitutional.
A Pennsylvania law required that each school day starts with the Pledge of Allegiance and a reading from the Bible. The law let the students excuse themselves from this activity if they found it dissagrable to their beliefs.
The Court held that school-sponsored Bible reading constituted government endorsement of a particular religion, and thus violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Holding was 8-1
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