MEDFORD, Mass. — His protest began a half-century ago, when Ellery Schempp opened the Quran during his high school's mandatory Bible reading time and silently scanned passages he was too nervous to actually read.

That minor rebellion led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled against school-sponsored prayer.

Schempp's civil disobedience in 1956 is back in the public eye with a new book "Ellery's Protest" by New York University law professor Stephen Solomon, who examines the effect of his case amid continuing controversy over the separation of church and state.

Schempp, a genial 67-year-old, clearly relishes the renewed activism as he's become a sought-after speaker for humanist groups and church and state separatists.

For most of his life, Schempp gave little thought to the school prayer case, even as its impact rattled through the courts and culture. A physicist, Schempp had a busy career, two marriages and saw both the North and South poles during extensive travel in which his legal legacy was an afterthought.

But his views have remained as controversial as they were when he was a teenager.

"I'm really dismayed that 50 years later, this is still a bit of an issue," Schempp, an atheist, said in an interview at his home in Medford, just outside Boston. "There's enough problems in the world. Does anyone seriously think that more prayer and more Bible reading is the answer to global problems, to political problems, to wars in Iraq?"

Clearly, many people do believe in prayer. The courts remain busy with cases brought by those who claim the state is either suppressing — or promoting — a faith.

In Delaware, for example, a Jewish family is suing a school district it claims is promoting Christianity with prayers at events such as school potlucks and graduation. Last year, a valedictorian from Nevada sued after school officials turned off the microphone while she spoke about Christ's Crucifixion during graduation.

John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, a legal group that often takes on religious cases and is representing the valedictorian, agrees public schools should not be sponsoring prayer and Bible reading. But he said the Schempp ruling has been abused by interest groups that are trying to stamp religion out of public life.

In the Schempp case, the court said prayer and Bible reading in his school were religious exercises, and it was unconstitutional for a public school to require them.

The justices wrote: "The breach of neutrality that is today a trickling stream may all too soon become a raging torrent and, in the words of Madison, 'It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.' "

Whitehead compared the Schempp decision "to throwing a big brick in a small pond."

"The rippling effect is still happening," he said.

Schempp said he was trying to make a point, not legal history, when he brought the Muslim scriptures to school.