Fifty Years Later, The Supreme Court’s Move to Ban Prayer in Schools Still Sparks Controversy

On this day in 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling that profoundly altered Americans’ understanding of the separation of church and state and the place of religion in society. The decision in the case of Abington School District v. Schempp declared organized prayers and biblical readings in public schools to be unconstitutional, upholding a similar ruling banning school prayer in the 1962 case of Engel v. Vitale…. more