Ellery Schempp (born Ellory Schempp, August 5, 1940) is an American physicist and the primary student involved in the landmark 1963 United States Supreme Court decision of Abington School District v. Schempp which declared that required public school sanctioned Bible readings were unconstitutional.
Biography
Schempp was born in Philadelphia and grew up in the Roslyn community of Abington Township. He graduated from Abington High School in 1958, and attended Tufts University where he earned bachelor degrees in physics and geology.
In 1977, Schempp was part of the Pittsburgh Explorer's Group Nanga Parbat Expedition which was to be the first American group to reach the peak of Nanga Parbat in Pakistan.
Schempp, who is retired, currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts.
Stephen D. Solomon, a professor at New York University, has written a book about Schempp and the Supreme Court case entitled Ellery’s Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle over School Prayer.
Activism
On November 26, 1956, Schempp staged a protest against the school requiring that each student read 10 Bible passages and the Lord's Prayer each day during homeroom. That day he brought a copy of the Qur'an and read from it; for this he was sent to the principal's office. With the help of his father, Edward Schempp, and the American Civil Liberties Union, they sued the Abington School district over their policy of mandatory Bible readings.
Schempp considers himself to be an atheist, and the Secular Coalition for America. He has traveled throughout the country talking about his experiences.
In 2002, Schempp was elected to Abington Senior High School's hall of fame for his accomplishments in physics. In his acceptance speech, he said that "When I left Abington in 1958, it wasn’t clear that Abington ever wanted to see me again". The award did include the notation “Initiated school prayer suit against Abington which was eventually decided by U.S. Supreme Court in 1963.”
Physics
Schempp's doctoral thesis was entitled Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance in Nitrogen Heterocycles. This work was the precursor to the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on which he continued to work for a substantial portion of his career.