[ After decades of affirming that prayers led by school officials
are unconstitutional, said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, "the court now
charts a different path."]
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SUPREME COURT TAKES ‘WRECKING BALL’ TO SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND
STATE WITH PRAYER RULING  
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Julia Conley
June 27, 2022
Common Dreams
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_ After decades of affirming that prayers led by school officials are
unconstitutional, said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, "the court now charts
a different path." _

Former Bremerton High School assistant football coach Joe Kennedy
answers questions after his legal case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School
District, was argued before the Supreme Court on April 25, 2022 in
Washington, D.C. , (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

 

A U.S. SUPREME COURT ruling on Monday offered "another example" of
the court's "conservative supermajority continuing its politicized
agenda," said the head of one of the nation's largest teachers unions
as the decision overturned decades of precedent which prohibited
educators from leading students in religious displays.

In _Kennedy v. Bremerton School District_, which concerned a coach 
[[link removed]]who
led prayers on the 50-yard line of a Washington state high school's
football field, the court's right-wing majority ruled that the coach's
prayers were protected under the First Amendment and that school
officials who asked him to stop were not acting in the interest of the
nation's bedrock laws separating church and state.

The three liberal justices dissented, saying "the court now charts a
different path" after decades of affirming that "school officials
leading prayer is constitutionally impermissible."

"This decision does a disservice to schools and the young citizens
they serve, as well as to our nation's long-standing commitment to the
separation of church and state," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the
minority opinion.

The decision comes just two decades after the court reaffirmed that
prayer in schools violated the separation of church and state, ruling
[[link removed]] in _Santa Fe
Independent School District v. Department of Education_ in 2000.

"Today's decision took a wrecking ball to the critical separation of
church and state, and with it the legitimacy of the highest court in
the land," said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.).

Observers noted that the case was complicated by the fact that lawyers
for Joe Kennedy, who coached football in Bremerton, Washington,
claimed Kennedy prayed privately and silently despite the fact that a
photo included in Sotomayor's opinion showed the coach leading
students in prayer.

Last year, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
found that Kennedy's lawyers had created "a deceitful narrative" about
the case, which the six right-wing justices accepted Monday.

Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr. of the Ninth Circuit found that Kennedy
"prayed out loud in the middle of the football field... surrounded by
players, members of the opposing team, parents, a local politician,
and members of the news media with television cameras recording the
event, all of whom had been advised of Kennedy's intended actions
through the local news and social media."

Meanwhile, Kennedy's team claimed the coach "offered his prayers
quietly while his students were otherwise occupied," as the majority
wrote in its opinion Monday.

"One of the amazing things about the Coach Kennedy case, which has
rendered the establishment clause's separation of church and state
basically moot, is that to accomplish this the majority embraced a
version of the facts that's demonstrably false,"
said _Guardian_ columnist Moira Donegan.

The Bremerton school board asked Kennedy to stop involving students in
his prayers in 2015, saying "his stature as a leader and role model
meant that students felt forced to participate, whatever their
religion and whether they wanted to or not," according to
[[link removed]] the _New
York Times._

The court, said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education
Association (NEA) "stretched the record to reach the wrong conclusion"
in the case.

"The Constitution should protect public school students from being
coerced into religious activity," said Pringle. "The court's decision
here does the opposite: it ignores the real-life pressure and coercion
that students will feel when school officials stage public religious
observances in class or at school events."

The ACLU, which filed an amicus brief in support of the school
district, said the high court's ruling on Monday "tramples the
religious freedom of students who may not share the preferred faith of
their coaches and teachers."

"The freedom to hold beliefs that differ from those with authority has
been a founding principle of our country," said Taylor Darling, senior
staff attorney with the ACLU of Washington. "It is disappointing that
today's decision erodes protections for public school students to
learn and grow free of coercion."

The county where Kennedy coached "is a religiously diverse community
and students reported they felt coerced to pray," added Darling. "One
player explained he participated against his own beliefs for the fear
of losing playing time if he declined. This decision strains the
separation of church and state—a bedrock principle of our
democracy—and potentially harms our youth."

The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) noted that the Kennedy
ruling represents the third time this term that the Supreme Court has
"deeply undermined constitutional law regarding church-state
separation."

"As Jews in America, we know intimately that religion-state separation
is essential to our ability to live and thrive," said Jody Rabhan,
chief policy officer for the NCJW.

"No student should have to choose between their religious freedom and
being part of school activities. But today's ruling in _Kennedy v.
Bremerton_ could force children enrolled in public schools to do just
that," said Rabhan. "The Court is dismantling the wall between
religion and state, and the impact on people—especially children who
practice a minority religion or no religion—cannot be overstated."

_Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

* Supreme Court Decision
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* Separation of Church and State
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