Madalyn Murray O'Hair (April 13, 1919 – September 29, 1995) was an American atheist activist, and founder of the organization American Atheists and its president from 1963 to 1986. Her son, Jon Garth Murray, was the president of the organization from 1986 to 1995, with her remaining de facto president during these nine years.
In 1995 she was murdered, along with her son and granddaughter, by David Roland Waters.
Madalyn Mays was born in the Beechview neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 13, 1919, to Lena Christina Scholle and John Irwin "Irv" Mays. As an infant, she was baptized into the Presbyterian faith. In 1937, she graduated from Rossford High School in Rossford, Ohio.
In 1949, Murray completed a bachelor's degree from Ashland University. In 1952, she completed a law degree from South Texas College of Law, however she failed the bar exam and never practiced law. In later writing for American Atheists, she referred to herself as "Dr. O'Hair," likely with regard to her law degree (a juris doctorate), although it is not standard practice for individuals in the United States with law degrees to do so. On November 16, 1954 she gave birth to her second son Jon Garth Murray, fathered by her boyfriend Michael Fiorillo.
Murray stated that she worked for seventeen years as a psychiatric social worker, and that in 1960 she was a supervisor at the Baltimore city public welfare department.
In 1960, Murray filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore City Public School System, in which she asserted that it was unconstitutional for her son William to be required to participate in Bible readings at Baltimore public schools. In this litigation, she stated that her son's refusal to partake in the Bible readings had resulted in bullying being directed against him by classmates, and that administrators condoned this. After consolidation with Abington School District v. Schempp, the lawsuit reached the Supreme Court of the United States in 1963. The Court voted 8-1 in Murray's favor, which effectively banned coercive prayer and Bible verse recitation at public schools in the United States. Thereafter, she declared herself to have been the leader of the movement to remove prayer from public schools. However, her son William later noted that there were several similar cases before the Supreme Court at the same time, and her case simply happened to be decided first.
O'Hair filed a lawsuit with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in regards to the Apollo 8 Genesis reading. O'Hair wished the courts to ban US astronauts—who were all Government employees—from public prayer in outer space. The case was rejected by the US Supreme Court for lack of jurisdiction.
O'Hair constantly challenged and publicly debated religious leaders and public figures on a variety of issues. She described herself as a "sexual libertarian" and stated that children in sixth grade should be given sex education and "be allowed to go at it without supervision or restriction -- in their parents' bedroom, on the grass in a park", and so forth. She felt that relationships between people, emotional or sexual, were not open to any kind of supervision by other people and especially not by the U.S. government.
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