Justices on the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case surrounding a former high school football coach who was fired by a Washington school district for kneeling and praying on the field after games.
Former coach Joe Kennedy’s legal fight with the Bremerton, Washington, school district began in 2015, and the case briefly reached the Supreme Court in 2019, when justices declined to take it and said the case was for lower courts to decide.
The high court eventually reconsidered, and the 6-3 conservative majority of justices on Monday appeared divided over whether Kennedy’s actions on the field violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Meanwhile, the court’s liberal minority laid out several hypothetical circumstances casting doubt on his counsel’s arguments.
Paul Clement, an attorney representing the coach, was the first to present arguments on Monday, saying the Constitution’s freedom of speech and freedom of religion guarantees give Kennedy the right to pray on the field. The school district argues Kennedy’s actions interfered with students’ religious freedoms and describes the coach’s prayers as “coercive.”
“Why can’t an employer tell an employee what they’re permitted to do, personal or otherwise?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Clement, arguing the coach’s duties weren’t just during the game but for two hours after, thus still happening while he was on the job.
Clement notably did not defend Kennedy’s actions in instances when students joined him en masse on the field for prayers, arguing only that the coach could not be punished for instances when he was praying alone.
Richard Katskee, an attorney defending the school board’s firing of Kennedy, argued Monday the coach claimed his prayers “help these kids be better people” and pointed out that Kennedy ignored accommodation offers, such as private locations to pray away from the field.
Kennedy’s case comes to the high court as Republican-appointed justices hold the majority and have been sympathetic to concerns of religious individuals and groups in recent rulings. Already this term, the justices ruled 8-1 for a Texas death row inmate who sought to have his pastor pray aloud and touch him during his execution.
In a statement from Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh in 2019, the four Republican-appointed justices said it was premature for the Supreme Court to hear Kennedy’s case at that time. But they argued the 9th Circuit’s “understanding of the free speech rights of public school teachers is troubling and may justify review in the future.”
“Coach Kennedy did a lot of things over a period of time the school district said a lot of things over a period of time, but it’s an employment discrimination case,” Alito argued on Monday. “We look at the reason that was given and what was the reason that you gave here.”
In response, Katskee cited St. Mary’s v. Hicks and Reeves v. Sanderson, arguing “it’s necessary” to look at the whole record of circumstances to determine whether an employment action was improper.
The school district didn’t learn of Kennedy’s prayer practice until September 2015, a pattern he first began after a game in August 2008. School officials told him at the time that he needed to stop praying with students or engaging in overtly religious activity while still “on duty” as a coach. After Kennedy continued to pray on the field, he was placed on paid leave. His contract expired, and he didn’t reapply to coach the following year, according to school officials.
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Kennedy defended his postgame prayers in a January statement to the Washington Examiner, arguing he never coerced students into praying with him.
“They asked if they could join. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘This is America — of course you could join,'” Kennedy said.
