http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/9110822.htm
PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - Sidney G. Schempp, 91, a freethinker who, with
her Abington family, won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that made
mandatory Bible readings in public schools unconstitutional across the
land, died Monday of liver disease at home in Castro Valley, Calif.
A fighter until the end who opposed faith-based initiatives and the war
in Iraq, Mrs. Schempp's last regret was that she did not live long
enough to vote against President Bush in November, her son Ellery said.
In 1963, in "School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, the high
court, in an 8-1 ruling, upheld a decision of the U.S. District Court in
Philadelphia to strike down a 1928 law requiring that Bible verses be
read in schools.
The case had begun seven years earlier when Mrs. Schempp and her
husband, Edward, both members of the American Civil Liberties Union and
the Unitarian Church, supported their son Ellery, then a junior at
Abington High School, who had been sent to the principal's office for
reading the Koran during the Bible-reading period.
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Merlyn LeRoy
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