Praying Coach Vindicated at SCOTUS in Another Big Religious Freedom Win

Praying Coach Vindicated at SCOTUS in Another Big Religious Freedom Win

As this Supreme Court term comes to a close, we have another big religious freedom win.

Previously, we covered the majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts in the Maine school funding case, Religious Liberty Win – Supreme Court Strikes Maine Law That Funded Secular But Not Religious Private Education. The principle reiterated there is a now-common theme — one we saw in the covid lockdown cases — that for similarly situated activities, government cannot discriminate against religious groups or expression.

Maine’s “nonsectarian” requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Regardless of how the benefit and restriction are described, the program operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Today brought another religious freedom win, in the context of expressions of speech at school sporting events. In a majority Opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who filled the seat of his mentor Anonin Scalia (see featured image), a school was found to have violated the free speech and religious freedom rights of a coach who prayed on the field:

Joseph Kennedy lost his job as a high school football coach because he knelt at midfield after games to offer a quiet prayer of thanks. Mr. Kennedy prayed during a period when school employees were free to speak with a friend, call for a reservation at a restaurant, check email, or attend to other personal matters. He offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied. Still, the Bremerton School District disciplined him anyway. It did so because it thought anything less could lead a reasonable observer to conclude (mistakenly) that it endorsed Mr. Kennedy’s religious beliefs. That reasoning was misguided. Both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect expressions like Mr. Kennedy’s. Nor does a proper understanding of the Amendment’s Establishment Clause require the government to single out private religious speech for special disfavor. The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.

Here are the key points from the Gorsuch Opinion:

Now before us, Mr. Kennedy renews his argument that the District’s conduct violated both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment. These Clauses work in tandem. Where the Free Exercise Clause protects religious exercises, whether communicative or not, the Free Speech Clause provides overlapping protection for expressive religious activities. See, e.g., Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263, 269, n. 6 (1981); Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 841 (1995). That the First Amendment doubly protects religious speech is no accident. It is a natural outgrowth of the framers’ distrust of government attempts to regulate religion and suppress dissent….

Under this Court’s precedents, a plaintiff may carry the burden of proving a free exercise violation in various ways, including by showing that a government entity has burdened his sincere religious practice pursuant to a policy that is not “neutral” or “generally applicable.” Id., at 879–881. Should a plaintiff make a showing like that, this Court will find a First Amendment violation unless the government can satisfy “strict scrutiny” by demonstrating its course was justified by a compelling state interest and was narrowly tailored in pursuit of that interest. Lukumi, 508 U. S., at 546.1

That Mr. Kennedy has discharged his burdens is effectively undisputed. No one questions that he seeks to engage in a sincerely motivated religious exercise. The exercise in question involves, as Mr. Kennedy has put it, giving “thanks through prayer” briefly and by himself “on the playing field” at the conclusion of each game he coaches. App. 168, 171. Mr. Kennedy has indicated repeatedly that he is willing to “wai[t] until the game is over and the players have left the field” to “wal[k] to mid-field to say [his] short, private, personal prayer.” Id., at 69; see also id., at 280, 282. The contested exercise before us does not involve leading prayers with the team or before any other captive audience….

In this case, the District’s challenged policies were neither neutral nor generally applicable. By its own admission, the District sought to restrict Mr. Kennedy’s actions at least in part because of their religious character….

Thus, any sort of postgame supervisory requirement was not applied in an evenhanded, across-the-board way….

Applying these lessons here, it seems clear to us that Mr. Kennedy has demonstrated that his speech was private speech, not government speech. When Mr. Kennedy uttered the three prayers that resulted in his suspension, he was not engaged in speech “ordinarily within the scope” of his duties as a coach. Lane, 573 U. S., at 240. He did not speak pursuant to government policy. He was not seeking to convey a government-created message. He was not instructing players, discussing strategy, encouraging better on-field performance, or engaged in any other speech the District paid him to produce as a coach….

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. Here, 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. And 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. The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination. Mr. Kennedy is entitled to summary judgment on his First Amendment claims. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is Reversed.

You’ll never guess the reaction. No, seriously, you won’t.

Once again asking people to stop using Muslims as ad absurdism rhetorical talking point. I think it’s actually fine if a coach wants to pray at a football game. https://t.co/yIzqPAKaph

— Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 27, 2022

Yes that's what religious freedom means. https://t.co/NRIGzxGg5G

— Noam Blum (@neontaster) June 27, 2022

[Featured Image: Antonin Scalia and Neil Gorsuch]

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