The Humanist Interview: Ellery Schempp (Interview‪)‬

ON NOVEMBER 26, 1956, sixteen-year-old Ellery Schempp staged a protest against his public high school's daily Bible reading and prayer requirement by bringing a copy of the Quran to class and reading silently from it. After he was reprimanded he and his parents sued the school district. The case was taken up by the ACLU and eventually led to the landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision Abington vs. Schempp and Murray vs. Curlett that declared devotional Bible readings in public schools unconstitutional. Schempp went on to earn a bachelor's degree from Tufts University in physics and his Ph.D. in physics from Brown University. He has held numerous academic and research positions, including at the University of Pittsburgh, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and with the Harvard Consulting group, focusing his research in the areas of chemical physics, energy conservation, and MRI technology. Schempp is a member of the American Humanist Association, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and sits on the Advisory Board of the Secular Student Alliance. Ellery's Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle over School Prayer by Stephen D. Solomon was published by University of Michigan Press in August 2007. The Humanist caught up with Schempp shortly thereafter to discuss his protest, the philosophy behind it, and the status of church-state separation under the current Supreme Court.