WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a high school football coach has a constitutional right to pray at the 50-yard line after his team’s games.
The vote was 6 to 3, with the court’s three Liberal members differing.
The case has the rights of state workers to free speech and the free exercise of their faith against the Constitution’s ban on the government’s endorsement of religion and the ability of public employers to regulate speech in the workplace. The decision was in tension with decades of precedents from the Supreme Court banning pressure on students to engage in religious activities.
The case concerns Joseph Kennedy, an assistant coach at a public high school in Bremerton, Washington, near Seattle. For eight years, Mr. Kennedy regularly offered prayers after games, with students often joining him. He also led and participated in prayers in the dressing room, a practice he later abandoned and did not defend in the Supreme Court.
In 2015, after an opposing coach for the principal at mr. Kennedy’s school said he thought it was “really cool” that Mr. Kennedy is allowed to pray on the field, the school board said. Kennedy instructed not to pray if it interferes with his duties or involved students. The two parties differed on the question of whether Mr. Kennedy heeded it.
A school official recommended that the coach’s contract not be renewed for the 2016 season, and Mr. Kennedy did not reapply for the post.
The two parties presented completely different versions of what was said in Mr. Kennedy’s last months happened, which made the Supreme Court’s task difficult. Mr. Kennedy said he was just trying to offer a short, quiet and solitary prayer that is a little different than saying mercy before a meal in the school cafeteria. The school board responded that the public nature of his prayers and his stature as a leader and role model meant that students felt compelled to participate, regardless of their religion and whether they wanted to or not.
For the past 60 years, the Supreme Court has rejected prayer in public schools, at least when it is officially required or part of a formal ceremony such as a high school graduation ceremony. As recently as 2000, the court ruled that organized prayers led by students at high school football matches violated the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.
“The delivery of a pregame prayer has the undue effect of forcing those present to participate in an act of religious worship,” Judge John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
Mr. Kennedy’s attorneys said those school prayer precedents were not relevant because they involved government speeches. The core question in mr. Kennedy’s case, they said, was whether state employees give up their own rights to free speech and the free practice of religion in the workplace.
The school district, his lawyers responded, was entitled to sue Mr. Kennedy to demand to stop praying as he did. “Regardless of whether Kennedy’s very public speech was official, the district can regulate it,” the school district’s Supreme Court order said. “His prayer practice disrupted the district’s control over the district’s own events, interfering with students’ religious freedom and subjecting the district to significant litigation risks.”
The school district noted that a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, had criticized what he called “a fraudulent narrative” by Mr. Kennedy’s lawyers were created.
Mr. Kennedy was never disciplined for praying silent, private prayers, Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. wrote last year. Instead, the judge of one match wrote, Mr. Kennedy “prayed aloud in the middle of the soccer field” just after it was over, “surrounded by players, members of the opposing team, parents, a local politician and members of the news media with television cameras recording the event, and all was informed of Kennedy’s planned actions by local news and social media. “
When the Supreme Court in 2019 refused to hear an earlier appeal in the case, four judges expressed reservations about how Mr. Kennedy was treated.
“The ninth circle’s understanding of the free speech rights of teachers in public schools is of concern and may warrant revision in the future,” Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. said. wrote at the time, adding that the judges should wait for more information on “important unresolved factual questions.” Judges Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas joined him.
After further proceedings, the Ninth Circuit decided again for the school board. This time, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, No. 21-418.