Prof lectures on activist's fight to remove religion from schools
Feb. 1, 2008
The Jewish community has not always come out against the incursion of religion into public schools, mostly, according to NYU's Stephen Solomon, for fear of giving fuel to anti-Semites.
"There is a lot of concern that to bring cases challenging Protestant devotionals in schools would fan backlash against Jews," Solomon said to a crowd of 100 at the Jan. 16 Lunch and Learn at the Jewish Center in Princeton.
Yet the issue of Bible reading and prayer in schools is certainly of concern to Jews in the United States and even in Central Jersey. A case from East Brunswick, where the football coach was asked by the school to stop praying with his team, is now on appeal after the federal district court upheld his right to pray. But instead of confronting the First Amendment issue of establishment of religion in the courts, the Jewish community has often favored working through its community relations councils.
Solomon, an associate professor at New York University and the director of graduate studies in its department of journalism, became fascinated with the Supreme Court case of Ellery Schempp, a Unitarian high-school student who in 1957 took a stand against New Testament readings over the public address system by reading a Koran during the Bible reading and Lord's prayer.
Solomon got interested in this case because it is as controversial today as it was when it was decided; this, he adds, is contrary to virtually all Supreme Court cases, which eventually become accepted into the fabric of American life.
"The Schempp case is particularly interesting because it is a rallying cry for the religious right and many conservatives, and so is in the center of the continuing debate over the role of religion in public life," wrote Solomon in an email, explaining how he came to write "Ellery's Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle Over School Prayer," published in July 2007.
Schempp's civil disobedience took place in 1956, during the era of Dwight Eisenhower, "Ozzie and Harriet," and the burgeoning suburbs. Schempp's parents, and especially his father, were socially active in the Unitarian tradition, with his father a member of the American Civil Liberties Union and subscriber to publications on politics and history.
Another important influence on Schempp was a group of classmates who met weekly at the home of an English teacher to discuss political issues. One Thursday, Schempp brought up his discomfort with the Bible readings and Lord's Prayer, because the theological ideas they embodied conflicted with what he was taught at home and at his church. He was also concerned for his Jewish friends.
At first, Schempp was a bit na•ve. "He had a sense that the whole thing must be a silly mistake," said Solomon, "that Bible reading was against the First Amendment, and maybe if he showed them, they would change."
Schempp started discussing the possibility of taking action with his Thursday night group. Although three or four out of the 12 or so friends agreed to try something, when push came to shove, their concerns about getting into trouble and possibly sacrificing college recommendations overcame their ethical qualms.
So he did it alone. When the day came, and the teacher noticed Schempp reading the Koran, Schempp was sent to the principal and then to the guidance counselor -- who asked him if he was a social misfit. Schempp responded that he was protesting as a matter of principle and then went home and wrote a note to the ACLU asking them to represent him in court.
The ACLU agreed to take the case, and Jewish lawyers did some early work on it. Bernard Wolfman, an attorney for the ACLU in Philadelphia, interviewed Schempp and did early legal work but stepped aside for fear his Jewish faith could become an issue in the case. The 29-year-old Ted Mann, later head of the American Jewish Congress and founder of Mazon, drew up the complaint but dropped out when he felt the case was headed to the Supreme Court, which he felt would require a more experienced attorney.
Rabbi and historian Solomon Grayzel, a professor at Gratz College and then head of the Jewish Publication Society, served as expert witness for the Schempp family. Standing against him was the Abington School district theology specialist, the dean emeritus of the Yale Divinity School.
In the three-judge federal court, Grayzel argued that the King James Bible was sectarian, that it favored a Protestant interpretation and disfavored others. He did this by arguing from a Jewish perspective. He described the scene in Matthew where Jesus was put on trial and turned over to the authorities to be crucified. When the Roman governor asked whether there was any reason Jesus shouldn't be bound over, the Jewish crowd cried out, "Let him be crucified." Because this verse had been the cause of more anti-Jewish riots than any in history, Grayzel claimed that making a Jewish child listen to it would be tantamount to torture.
Then, because the Abington school district claimed the Bible offered good lessons in morality, Grayzel cited the story of the Good Samaritan, in which an Israelite priest, then a Levite, pass by a Jew who had been beaten by robbers and leave him lying in a road, only to have a Samaritan stranger pass by and save him. Grayzel pointed out that in the original story the Samaritan was probably an Israelite (given that the three sectors of Israelite society were priests, Levites, and Israelites), and the priest and Levite probably passed the person by for fear he was dead and would make them ritually impure. It made sense that the Israelite would have stopped to help.
Grayzel explained that story had changed over time in a way that disparaged Jews. Because Samaritans and Jews were not on good terms, the substitution of a Samaritan for an Israelite was probably a slap in the face to the Jews. But the result for Jewish children in a school, he said, could be Christian children claiming that they come from a people who are cruel.
The federal court passed in favor of Schempp, declaring the law unconstitutional, and the Pennsylvania legislature immediately passed an amendment enabling students to be excused from listening to the Bible verses over the public address system with a note from their parents.
In the wake of this change, the Supreme Court did have to send back the case for additional hearings, eventually the school district's claim to be teaching morality through Bible verses did not stand up, and in an 8-to-1 ruling Schempp's lawyers won the case. The court said that the devotional exercises were indeed religious exercises and that Pennsylvania had violated the constitutional requirement that the state remain neutral, neither promoting nor inhibiting religion.
The reaction to the Supreme Court's 1963 decision was very angry, particularly among Catholics, Protestants, and, added Solomon, "every politician in Washington." In fact, there were numerous congressional proposals for a constitutional amendment to return prayer and Bible reading to schools. There were also many anti-Semitic statements and Ted Mann had a swastika drawn in the wet cement outside his new house.
As for Ellery Schempp, when he got into Tufts University, the principal of Abington High School wrote a letter to the dean of admissions that they should rescind his acceptance because he was such a troublemaker. Luckily Tufts ignored the letter and Schempp went on to a successful career in physics. And today the Abington school district has changed its stance, as Solomon explained.
"Despite the fact that there continues to be enormous controversy around the nation, in Abington they made their peace five years ago when they invited Schempp back and inducted him into the Abington High School hall of fame," Solomon said.
Solomon is concerned with the replaying of the church versus state issues today, in the context of a strong Christian right with money, legal power, and its own law firms -- "the ACLUs of the right" -- bringing cases to enable people to freely exercise their right to pray. He added that the constitutional philosophy of the court has changed, and the decision to strike down prayer at football games and graduation ceremonies was by a margin of five to four.
As to the claim that liberal, activist judges are kicking God out of the public schools, Solomon said this is simply not true. He said the court's conservatives back then were more supportive of the separation of church and state than the liberals, and in the Schempp decision three of the four conservative members of the court voted in support.
"It was the American people themselves who removed most of religion from the public schools," Solomon said.