The First Amendment & Religious Freedom
Image: Ted S. Warren/AP
The Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments in a case centered around a former Washington state public high school football coach who would kneel in prayer at the 50-yard line after each game.
🙏 Background… Bremerton High School football coach Joe Kennedy began his postgame tradition when he started coaching at the school in 2008. He initially prayed alone, “but students started joining him, and over time he began to deliver a short, inspirational talk with religious references,” reports the AP, which adds that Kennedy also led students in locker room prayers.
- The school district asked him to stop in 2015, saying they were concerned about being sued for violating students’ religious freedom rights.
- Kennedy stopped leading locker room prayers upon the school’s request, but continued to pray on the field after games. He was suspended by the school the following year.
- He filed suit in a federal court months later alleging a violation of his First Amendment rights, and lost twice in lower courts before the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
🧗♀️ The crux: At issue is the fact that the First Amendment’s religion clause points in different directions: the government (i.e., public schools) can’t prohibit the “free expression” of faith – but at the same time, it can’t act in a manner “respecting an establishment of religion.”
⚖️👀 Looking ahead… The Supreme Court’s decision is expected by July.
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From the Left
🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: These opinions take 1.96 minutes to read.
“For years, Kennedy incorporated “motivational” prayers into his coaching. Eventually, these prayers culminated in public sessions after games, where players from both teams would kneel around Kennedy as he held up helmets from both teams and led students in prayer.
Kennedy also engaged in other overt performances of his religion while he was coaching public school students. After each game, while players and spectators were still present, Kennedy would walk out to the 50-yard line, kneel, and pray. Initially, he did this alone, but after a few games students started to join him — until eventually a majority of his players joined him as well…
Kennedy spent much of his coaching career behaving like a preacher, holding public prayer sessions for students — many of whom Kennedy wielded authority over. And, while there’s no evidence that he ever ordered a student to kneel with him when he performed a religious ceremony on the 50-yard line, he did not discourage students from joining him, either, and a majority of the students on his team eventually did so.
At least some students felt pressured to participate in these prayer sessions, even though they did not share Kennedy’s religious beliefs. One parent eventually complained to the school district that his son “felt compelled to participate,” despite the fact that he is an atheist, because the student feared “he wouldn’t get to play as much if he didn’t participate”...
For what it’s worth, Kennedy does appear to have made some concessions to the establishment clause. His brief to the Supreme Court largely asserts a right to say a post-game prayer on the 50-yard line, not a right to hold “motivational” prayer sessions surrounded by public school students.
But Kennedy is still claiming that he had a right to make a public performance of his own religious beliefs, while he was very visibly acting as a representative of a public school district, and in full view of a crowd of students, parents, players, and spectators.
Under existing law, that’s not allowed.”
“It is right up front in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
There is a reason both the establishment and free-exercise clauses start the Bill of Rights. If there was a single driving force behind the founding of the American colonies, it was religious liberty — the right of non-Anglican “dissenters” to worship as they saw fit…
Now along come right-wing, overwhelmingly White evangelical Christians, a large portion of whom have decided they are victims of persecution. They believe this even though the United States remains by far the most religiously observant country among affluent countries. And they ignore the fact that the government has long incorporated religious exemptions (e.g., for military service) and that religious hate crimes are overwhelmingly directed at Jews and Muslims…
The current 6-to-3 right-wing majority seems poised to wreak havoc on the Constitution as it has been understood for decades. One can practically hear the justices champing at the bit as they review cases this term. This includes one involving a football coach leading players in prayer…
If it seems like back to the future, you’re right. School prayer was struck down by the court in 1962… Decades of precedent supporting the proposition that the state cannot compel religious practice or legislate according to one faith could be gone by this summer”
From the Right
🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: These opinions take 1.93 minutes to read.
“In 2008, Kennedy made a commitment to God: win or lose, he would take a knee in private prayer on the field of battle after every game. It was a solitary commitment, personal to him, involving no one else.
Over eight football seasons, however, others chose to join him. Not every time… But win or lose, Kennedy would go through the "good game" line, discuss logistics with the opposing team's coaches, and drop to one knee in private prayer for maybe 15 or 30 seconds.
Then someone complimented the school district about Kennedy's postgame prayers.
In response to that compliment, on September 17, 2015, school officials sent Kennedy a letter directing him to stop all religious-related activities with students. That was fine with Kennedy; the commitment he made to God never involved the students. Since that day, he has never prayed with students.
Instead, he hoped to return to his practice of praying by himself after the game, but school officials didn't like that either…
School officials [eventually] suspended Kennedy. Why? Was it because he spent eight football seasons engaged in religious activity with student-athletes? Did he withhold playing time from players reluctant to join his prayer circle?
According to the school district, it disciplined Kennedy because he had engaged in "overt, public and demonstrative religious conduct while still on duty." He had, "kneeled on the field and prayed immediately following" the game he had just coached…
A month later, the school district would place, "Do Not Rehire..." at the end of the first negative evaluation it ever gave him…
Banning anyone from praying just because they can be seen by the public is wrong and violates the Constitution. Let us hope the Court realizes it.”
“In a recent case called Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Ninth Circuit in California set a dangerous precedent that will likely have negative implications throughout our nation for many years to come…
The Ninth Circuit eventually — and wrongly — ruled in favor of the District. That led to me join Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) and Senator James Lankford’s (R-OK) amicus brief in support of Coach Kennedy.
Overall, the Ninth Circuit’s holding was deeply concerning because it gave schools the authority to censor their employees’ private religious expressions in two ways. First, it broadened the scope of an educator’s job to include any time the employee is “generally tasked with communicating with students” — directly providing the educational institution with censorship authority over employees while visible to students on school premises. Second, the court held that religious speech of public-school educators must be censored under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause to avoid the perception of government-endorsed religious beliefs.
Generally speaking, the original intent of the Establishment Clause was to separate school and religion, but the Ninth Circuit’s suppression of private and voluntary religious expression is a direct constitutional violation. I wholeheartedly disagree with the Ninth Circuit’s approach to include broad, far-reaching language that ultimately weaponizes the Establishment Clause to suppress the rights of public employees throughout our great nation…
No judicial decision should impinge on a public employee’s right to free expression, especially if the court’s reasoning centers around avoiding discomfort for a politically-sensitive individual.”
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