Case Summary
Coach Joseph Kennedy is a former U.S. Marine who coached football at Bremerton High School, in Bremerton, Washington, from 2008 until his termination in 2015. Coaching was a calling for Kennedy — he cared about shaping the boys he coached into disciplined and well-respected men. Kennedy is also a devout Christian and concluded each game with a prayer “of thanksgiving for player safety, sportsmanship, and spirited competition.” He initially prayed alone, but many students began to voluntarily join him during his tenure at the school. His post-game prayers were aimed at motivating his players, and holding himself up as a good role model, not coercion or religious indoctrination.
After receiving a letter from Bremerton School District in 2015, instructing him to not pray with students, Coach Kennedy complied. To keep the covenant he made with God, however, Coach Kennedy asked for an accommodation so he could continue his prayers, alone, at the conclusion of each football game. The School District, in its benevolence, gave Coach Kennedy a few options of hidden places where he could pray, but denied his request to pray on the 50-yard line.
On October 26, 2015, Coach Kennedy disregarded the directive and prayed on the 50-yard line following the game, prompting district officials to slap him with a work suspension two days later. It was then that Coach Kennedy went on offense in terms of defending his besieged religious liberties.
After an EEOC complaint, a lawsuit that twice went from the district court to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and one denial of certiorari by the United States Supreme Court, the case of the praying coach will finally be heard by the highest Court in the land. The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear his case, which will determine whether Coach Kennedy was speaking as a government employee when he prayed and whether his prayer constitutes a violation of the Establishment Clause.
Kennedy continues to stand by his faith and wishes to be allowed the First Amendment right to say a brief, silent prayer, alone, at the conclusion of football games without running afoul of the Establishment Clause. Mountain States Legal Foundation filed a brief in support of his clear constitutional right to do so.
Coach Kennedy prevailed at the Supreme Court; the 6-3 opinion upheld his right to pray at the 50-yard line at the conclusion of football games. The Court explained that the Free Speech Clause, Establishment Clause, and Free Exercise Clause are not separated into a hierarchy, but rather work in tandem. The Court also instructed lower courts to look at the Establishment Clause through a historical lens. This case was a win for originalism—the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted by analyzing the historic meaning of the written words at the time the Constitution was ratified rather than analyzed with modern problems in mind. MSLF could not be happier that Coach Kennedy’s rights were not only vindicated, but that originalism is not dead.
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