Supreme Court to hear case of coach who lost his job after kneeling and praying on the field
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After years of arguing that the actions of school board officials in Bremerton, Wash., violated his rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, a coach has finally successfully taken his case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in the case of a high school football coach who lost his job after refusing to abide by school administrators’ orders to not pray or kneel at the 50-yard line after his team’s games.
According to The New York Times, the Supreme Court declined to hear an earlier appeal in the case in 2019. Although the appeal was denied, four conservative justices wrote that the lower court’s ruling in favor of the school was “troubling” and that Kennedy’s claims “may justify review in the future.”
The decision not to hear the case was made after the Ninth Circuit again ruled against Kennedy, arguing that since Kennedy was a public school employee, school officials had the ability to restrict him from praying publicly, in order to avoid potential violations of the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion. Kennedy allegedly not only prayed on the field but in the locker room with team players.
The full Ninth Circuit then declined to rehear the case over the objections of 11 judges, court records indicated.
Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., the author of the Ninth Circuit panel opinion, wrote that “Kennedy made it his mission to intertwine religion with football.”
“He led the team in prayer in the locker room before each game, and some players began to join him for his postgame prayer, too, where his practice ultimately evolved to include full-blown religious speeches to, and prayers with, players from both teams after the game, conducted while the players were still on the field and while fans remained in the stands,” Smith wrote.
One of the main concerns the Supreme Court will be looking at is whether Kennedy was praying as a private citizen or as an assistant coach and school employee. The Ninth Court of Appeals had ruled that the coach was acting as a public employee and thus not authorized to pray in the area because the First Amendment doesn’t apply.
Kennedy, however, claimed that accommodations for religion were too far from players, making it difficult for him to perform his duties as a coach should he want to pray. “There were no accommodations that were feasible,” he said.
“It was tough,” he added, “to be taken away from the thing that you love.”
However, the Bremerton School District told the Supreme Court last year that school officials had heard complaints from players’ parents that their children felt forced to participate in the prayers because of who was conducting them and where. One parent even said his son felt “compelled to participate” out of fear he would lose out on playing time.
School officials noted to combat this issue, they offered Kennedy time and space to pray before and after games, such as in the press box, but he insisted on praying on the field where students were close by.
“For seven years this was Kennedy conducting prayer on the field, leading it, delivering it to the students,” said Richard Katskee, vice president and legal director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is representing the school district.
The former coach put “himself on the 50-yard line and he makes a spectacle of things,” Katskee said. “There’s nothing about that that’s personal or private.”
Prior to losing his job, Kennedy was asked to stop the prayers and even put on leave when he failed to do so in 2015. As he continued to dismiss the school district’s requests not to pray on the field, in 2016 an evaluation of his performance determined he should not be hired for the next season, citing failure to follow district policy and failure to supervise student-athletes after games.
As a result, Kennedy chose not to reapply for his coaching position at Bremerton High School and instead filed suit against the Bremerton School District in federal district court in Tacoma, Washington.
The case brings up the constitutional question of how accommodating public schools must be to the religious beliefs of employees. Many have used the case to bring up the idea of separation of church and state. The Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that public schools could not offer prayers, even if participation by students is voluntary. Often students felt compelled to pray even if they were not comfortable because of the fear of teachers or higher authorities retaliating.
Speaking to this and referring to Kennedy in conversation with CBS News, Rachel Laser, the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said:
“When a coach uses the power of his job to be in a place and have access to students at a time when they’re expected to encircle him and come to him, that’s an abuse of that power and a violation of the Constitution.
“Religious freedom is not the right to impose your religion on others. We all need to have it, so that’s why the free exercise and establishment clause work together to protect religious freedom for all of us,” Laser added.
According to USA TODAY, some are concerned that if the conservative majority Supreme Court rules in favor of Kennedy, whether teachers can recite a prayer before classroom lessons will become the next topic of discussion.
The Supreme Court is expected to make a decision in the case this summer.