Supreme Court bolsters religious rights, sides with former football coach who lost his job after repeatedly praying on the field following games

• In a religious freedoms case, the Supreme Court sided with a former high school football coach who prayed on the field immediately after games.
• Joe Kennedy sued the school district he worked at, alleging it impeded his First Amendment rights.

In a major case about First Amendment rights, the Supreme Court on Monday sided with a former public high school football coach who lost his job for praying on the field after games.

Joe Kennedy, Bremerton High School's former football coach, sued the Washington state-based school district, alleging it infringed on his free exercise and free speech freedoms by requesting that he not pray at the 50-yard line immediately after football games.

Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered the opinion for the case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, writing: "The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike."

"Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observance doubly protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment," Gorsuch continued. "And the only meaningful justification the government offered for its reprisal rested on a mistaken view that it had a duty to ferret out and suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech. The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination."

The court's three liberal justices dissented, disputing the majority's characterization of Kennedy's behavior.

"To the degree the Court portrays petitioner Joseph Kennedy's prayers as private and quiet, it misconstrues the
facts," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion. "The record reveals that Kennedy had a longstanding practice of conducting demonstrative prayers on the 50- yard line of the football field. Kennedy consistently invited others to join his prayers and for years led student athletes in prayer at the same time and location. The Court ignores this history."

The Supreme Court for decades ruled against praying on public school grounds. But Monday's 6-3 decision adds to a growing list of decisions handed down by the current court's conservative majority that protect and bolster religious rights. Last week, the court struck down a Maine program that prohibited taxpayer funds from going toward schools that offer religious teaching, declaring the rule was discriminatory.

In the current case, lawyers for Bremerton School District argued that they had no issue with Kennedy's prayers, but requested that he pray alone and separately from students, to avoid pressuring them to join in prayer. Kennedy could return to the field to pray after students and other bystanders had vacated the area following games, the school district said.

Superintendent Aaron Leavell wrote to Kennedy in 2015 informing him that he was "free to engage in religious activity, including prayer, so long as it does not interfere with [his] job responsibilities," according to a legal brief.

The school district said Kennedy's conduct could be perceived as a government endorsement of religion, which the First Amendment's establishment clause prohibits.

Sotomayor, in her dissent, highlighted that governments should not promote religion, pushing back on the majority's ruling.

"Properly understood, this case is not about the limits on an individual's ability to engage in private prayer at work," she wrote. "This case is about whether a school district is required to allow one of its employees to incorporate a public, communicative display of the employee's personal religious beliefs into a school event, where that display is recognizable as part of a longstanding practice of the employee ministering religion to students as the public watched. A school district is not required to permit such conduct; in fact, the Establishment Clause prohibits it from doing so."

Despite numerous calls from the district, though, Kennedy continued to pray at the 50-yard line and participated in several media appearances in which he and his counsel continued to say that the only acceptable outcome would be for Kennedy to carry on as he pleased. Kennedy regularly prayed after games for eight years.

At times, students or other observers would join Kennedy in prayer, but the coach claimed that he never cared whether students did. Still, one student said he had joined in the prayer because, even though it was against his beliefs, he was fearful of losing playing time if he did not join his coach, the Associated Press reported.

The district ultimately placed Kennedy on leave for ignoring its requests. After multiple lower courts dismissed his legal challenges, Kennedy eventually turned to the Supreme Court, which took up his case.