Supreme Court Lets Public Schools Coerce Students Into Practicing Christianity

In another extreme ruling, the Supreme Court has removed foundational, decades-old constitutional limits on religion in public schools. Its Monday decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District overruled a half-century of precedent to elevate the rights of public school officials over students. The ruling will allow these officials to engage in coercive sectarian prayer on the job. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s 6–3 decision is another maximalist attack on the separation of church and state, stripping students of their First Amendment freedom against religious indoctrination. His opinion also embraces a false narrative of faith-based persecution, illustrating yet again that this court will manipulate facts to reach its desired outcome.

Joseph Kennedy, the plaintiff in Monday’s case, worked as a football coach at a public high school in Washington State. In 2008, he began reciting Christian prayers at the 50-yard line after games, allowing students to join him. Eventually, a majority of the team consistently formed a prayer circle with their coach. During these invocations, Kennedy would lift a helmet while kneeling students surrounded him. He also led Christian prayers in the locker room before games. In 2015, the school district learned of this practice and asked Kennedy to stop, asserting that his conduct violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause (which bars the government from “respecting an establishment of religion”). The district noted that non-Christian students could be alienated by his behavior and asked him to pray privately, or while he was off-duty.