Supreme Court Sides With Praying WA Football Coach

BREMERTON, WA — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a former Bremerton High School football coach had a constitutional right to pray on the 50-yard line immediately after his team's games.

The court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines in the coach's favor, with the justices finding the First Amendment protected the coach's prayer.

“The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority.

As The Associated Press previously reported, Bremerton High School assistant football coach Joe Kennedy regularly offered prayers after games, and many uniformed students joined him. He also led and participated in prayers in the locker room, though he eventually stopped the practice and did not try to defend the action to the Supreme Court.

Kennedy, a former Marine who worked at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard during the day, started coaching football at Bremerton High School in 2008. He told the AP he was new to religion and coaching, inspired by the film "Facing the Giants," about a Christian high school football coach. The film helped him decide to give thanks to God "on the battlefield" after each game.

Initially, Kennedy prayed alone, but students quickly joined.

The school district said it learned Kennedy led players in prayer from a different team's coach in 2015. Administrators told Kennedy he could not participate in religious activities with students. Any of his own religious observations would also have to be either nondemonstrative or happen without students.

Kennedy initially complied, but his lawyers later insisted he be allowed to resume praying with players. They described it as a "personal" prayer protected by the Constitution, regardless of whether students joined.

When Kennedy resumed praying after games during the 2015 season, spectators rushed to the field to join him, as did members of the opposing team. The practice prompted a warning from the school district, which said it could be perceived as the school endorsing a religion.

The district later placed him on leave and ultimately did not renew his contract after Kennedy continued the practice for the next two games.

A federal judge ruled against Kennedy and compared the practice to a director who comes to center stage and prays at the end of a school play.

"A reasonable onlooker would interpret their speech from that location as an extension of the school-sanctioned speech just before it," District Judge Ronald Leighton said.

In 2019, the nation's highest court declined to take up the case at an early stage. At the time, however, four conservative justices agreed the lower court's ruling in favor of the school district was “troubling” for its “understanding of the free speech rights of public school teachers.”

The case forced the Supreme Court justices to wrestle with how to balance the religious and free speech rights of teachers and coaches with the rights of students not to feel pressured into participating in religious practices, according to the AP.

The outcome could open the door for more religious practices in public schools.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.