Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of a high school football coach who lost his job because of his post-game prayers at the 50-yard line. By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that Joseph Kennedy’s conduct was protected by the First Amendment…
“Kennedy had been a part-time coach at Bremerton High School, a public school in Washington state, for seven years. During that time, he prayed at midfield after each game – first alone, but later with players and even some members of the opposing team joining him. When the school district learned about Kennedy’s prayers in September 2015, it expressed disapproval, and Kennedy briefly stopped his prayers…
“On Oct. 14, 2015, Kennedy notified the school district that he intended to resume his prayers at the next game. After a scene that the school district describes as chaotic, with spectators and reporters knocking down members of the band in an effort to join Kennedy at midfield, the school district told him that his prayers violated the district’s policy, and it offered him other options to pray – for example, after the crowd had left. But Kennedy continued to pray at the next two games, prompting the district to place him on administrative leave and, eventually, decline to renew his contract for the following season.” SCOTUSblog
Here’s our prior coverage of the case. The Flip Side
The right supports the decision, arguing that it protects religious liberty.
“If Mr. Kennedy’s action is considered government speech, Justice Gorsuch writes, then ‘a school could fire a Muslim teacher for wearing a headscarf in the classroom or prohibit a Christian aide from praying quietly over her lunch in the cafeteria.’…
“Justice Sotomayor says the majority fails to respect the tension between the Constitution’s ban on religious establishment and its guarantee of religious free exercise. Justice Gorsuch replies that the First Amendment makes both promises in a single sentence. ‘A natural reading,’ he says, ‘suggest the Clauses have ‘complementary’ purposes, not warring ones.’ He says the school punished Mr. Kennedy under ‘a mistaken view that it had a duty to ferret out and suppress religious observances.’…
“The Supreme Court is gradually restoring a proper constitutional understanding of the relationship between religion and the state. The Court in the 20th century began to use the Establishment Clause to let government restrict religious behavior and speech that is protected by the Free Exercise Clause. The Roberts Court’s religious liberty rulings don’t risk any state establishment of religion. But they do let Americans of faith express their views—as the Founders intended.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“There is no indication in the record that anyone expressed any coercion concerns to the district about the quiet, postgame prayers that Kennedy asked to continue and that led to his suspension. Nor is there any record evidence that students felt pressured to participate in these prayers…
“The district suggests that any visible religious conduct by a teacher or coach should be deemed—without more and as a matter of law— impermissibly coercive on students. Such a rule would be a sure sign that our Establishment Clause jurisprudence had gone off the rails.”
Ed Whelan, National Review
“Instead of [a] court-invented three-part test… Gorsuch and his five colleagues offer an empirical analysis of historical practices and understandings as a way to judge whether a government entity has violated the First Amendment by becoming too enmeshed in promoting religion. That is exactly as it should be. The original public meaning of the First Amendment, Gorsuch explained, ‘counsel[s] mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.’…
“Gorsuch wrote: ‘Learning to tolerate speech of prayer of all kinds is ‘part of learning how to live in a pluralistic society,’ a trait of character essential to ‘a tolerant citizenry.’’ He also noted: ‘Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse republic.’ An assistant coach’s noncoercive prayer, during a postgame interlude in which school policy otherwise offers him some free moments, burdens nobody.”
Quin Hillyer, Washington Examiner
The left opposes the decision, arguing that it will open the door to religious coercion in public schools.
The left opposes the decision, arguing that it will open the door to religious coercion in public schools.
“In 2006’s notorious Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court’s conservatives held that government employees have no free speech rights while performing their official duties. Kennedy was obviously in the midst of his official duties when he kneeled on the field, in uniform, responsible for the conduct of his students. And when he led his prayer circles, he was not ‘quiet,’ but loud and prominent by design. His expression was a quintessential example of on-the-job ‘government speech’ that, according to Garcetti, falls outside the First Amendment…
“To reach his conclusion, Gorsuch simply rewrote the facts. In his account, Kennedy had been suspended exclusively for his silent prayer—not the spectacle he created by hijacking football games with prayer circles. And because this prayer was allegedly so ‘quiet,’ it qualified as ‘private’ expression shielded by the First Amendment…
“The coach’s prayer, Gorsuch insisted, was ‘not delivered as an address to the team, but instead in his capacity as a private citizen.’ So even though he was in the middle of a field that he could only access because he was performing his job responsibilities, his speech bore no imprint of government approval, and was totally unconnected to his work as a coach.”
Mark Joseph Stern, Slate
“Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing the majority opinion, declared: ‘Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic — whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head.’…
“In doing so, Sotomayor wrote, the court ‘elevates one individual’s interest in personal religious exercise, in the exact time and place of that individual’s choosing, over society’s interest in protecting the separation between church and state, eroding the protections for religious liberty for all.’”
Erwin Chemerinsky, Los Angeles Times
“There is a greater issue that the majority, in their zeal, chose to ignore: the freedom of the students to not pray. I’m sure they would say that this freedom remains, and no one has to pray if they choose not to. But such a perspective is risible. Anyone who has ever played high school sports knows that if your coach is doing something, particularly something religious, and expects you to join, then you had better do it. To stand out and say, ‘I am Jewish’ or ‘I am Muslim’ or ‘I am an atheist’—or even simply ‘I don’t want to do that’—is to be labeled a distraction, a locker-room cancer, or worse…
“It’s not just about limiting your time on the field. It’s also about making you an outcast among your teammates, a prospect in your teen years about as painful and harmful as not being able to play a sport you love. It’s easier to just take a knee for a minute rather than reap the whirlwind of anger from your coach. That is why this is not about freedom but coercion.”
Dave Zirin, The Nation
World’s Ugliest Dog of 2022 winner: Meet Mr. Happy Face.
New York Post
