The Faith of Joseph Kennedy: SCOTUS to hear school coach's case after he's FIRED for praying with players
A Washington high school assistant football coach will take his case to the Supreme Court on Monday, April 25, after he lost his job for taking a knee in prayer at the 50-yard line while surrounded by students.
Joseph Kennedy, an eighteen-year Marine veteran, said the Bremerton School District infringed on his First Amendment rights of religious freedom by refusing to let him continue praying at the midfield after games following a September 2015 incident in which uniformed students joined him in prayer midfield. The district's lawyers claimed Kennedy was allowed to pray by himself but had to be placed on administrative leave after three more instances of him praying with students on the field and in locker rooms. They said the district had received multiple complaints and threats following news of his prayer meetings for allegedly influencing his students to join him in prayer. His coaching contract was ultimately dropped in 2016.
RELATED ARTICLES
Madison Cawthorn told to 'stop the sanctimony and hypocrisy' after lingerie pics emerge
"District administrators received threats and hate mail. Strangers confronted and screamed obscenities at the head coach, who feared for his safety," per the district's briefing to the Supreme Court, which originally dropped the case in 2019.
On the other hand, Kennedy has maintained that praying at the 50-yard line is a personal ritual of his since 2008 and that he never asked students to join him. Some of his players, however, asked him what he was doing after a few games and he told them he was "thanking God for you guys," prompting a couple of players who were Christian to ask Kennedy if they could join. "It was never any kind of thing where it was a mandatory thing," he told the New York Times.
Kennedy's attorney Jeremy Dys said the school had overstepped its boundaries by barring his client from praying when joined by students and slammed a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that ruled in favor of the district in 2019. "If a teacher prays over her lunch in the cafeteria and students can see her — just that little blessing over her salad — that's enough to terminate that teacher," Dys told CBS of potential ramifications of the 2019 verdict.
Meanwhile, Rachel Laser, CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is representing the district, upheld the ruling as a victory for the students' first amendment rights and urged the Supreme Court not to overturn the decision. "This case is challenging well-established case law that has protected students' religious freedom for decades, and that has been supported by conservative and liberal justices alike," Laser told CBS. "If the court rules the wrong way, teachers and coaches could pressure students to pray in every public school classroom across the country."
While Kennedy has maintained no one was pressured to join him, one student reportedly came forward to say he joined in one of the prayers only due to the fear of losing playtime. The embattled coach, who currently resides in Florida, said if he wins the Supreme Court case, he would get on "the very first flight back" to Washington. "The biggest honor of my life was coaching these young men," he continued. "No lie, we had blood, sweat, tears, and death in the Marine Corps, but I got way more out of coaching than anything else in my life."
And while the Supreme Court refused to take the case in 2019, four of the conservative justices had cast doubts on the Ninth Circuit Court's ruling. "The Ninth Circuit's understanding of the free speech rights of public-school teachers is troubling and may justify review in the future," wrote Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. at the time, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas. Laser noted the district faces a tough battle ahead now that the Supreme Court panel consists of six conservative and only three liberal justices.