The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided with a former Bremerton high school football coach in a dispute over the First Amendment and prayer in school.
In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled in favor of former Bremerton High School football team assistant coach Joe Kennedy in his dispute against the Bremerton School District in Washington.
In an opinion penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court said that in the case, “a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observance doubly protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment.” “Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic—whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head,” the opinion read. “The only meaningful justification the government offered for its reprisal rested on a mistaken view that it had a duty to ferret out and suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech.
“Today’s decision is particularly misguided because it elevates the religious rights of a school official, who voluntarily accepted public employment and the limits that public employment entails, over those of his students, who are required to attend school and who this Court has long recognized are particularly vulnerable and deserving of protection,” Sotomayor wrote.
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