Supreme Court Sides With Coach Over Prayers at the 50-Yard Line
The decision was a further illustration of how assertive and muscular the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has become this term, following as it did decisions last week eliminating the constitutional right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade and recognizing a Second Amendment right to bear arms outside the home for self-defense.
Mr. Kennedy said he was delighted by the ruling.
“This is just so awesome,” he said in a statement. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be back on the field with my guys.”
Rachel Laser, the president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which represented the school board in the case, lamented what she said was the latest in a series of mounting setbacks eroding the wall between religion and the public sphere.
“Today, the court continued its assault on church-state separation, by falsely describing coercive prayer as ‘personal’ and stopping public schools from protecting their students’ religious freedom,” she said in a statement.
The case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, No. 21-418, pitted the rights of government workers to free speech and the free exercise of their faith against the Constitution’s prohibition of government endorsement of religion and the ability of public employers to regulate speech in the workplace. The decision was in tension with decades of Supreme Court precedents that forbade pressuring students to participate in religious activities.
Mr. Kennedy had served as an assistant coach at a public high school in Bremerton, Wash., near Seattle. For eight years, he routinely offered prayers after games, with students often joining him. He also led and participated in prayers in the locker room, a practice he later abandoned and did not defend to the Supreme Court.
