School District of Abington Township Pennsylvania v. Schempp J Murray III’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
1,041 federal appellate · 325 district · 546 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,170 later decisions (178 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York (1978), Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
1,041 federal appellate · 325 district · 546 state decisions — followed in 43 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1253
Relies on Baker v. Carr · Bell v. Hood · Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. · McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher · Cantwell v. State of Connecticut
Cited together with Lemon v. Kurtzman · Everson v. Board of Education · Engel v. Vitale · Lynch v. Donnelly · Zorach v. Clauson
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 3,170 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the measure of constitutional adjudication is the ability and willingness to distinguish between real threat and mere shadow.”
285 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
34 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Buckley v. Valeo · Stone v. Graham“directly affected by the laws and practices against which their complaints are directed.”
28 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.