Supreme Court gives a win to religious freedom, sides with coach who prayed on high school football field

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that a Washington state school district violated a high school football coach’s First Amendment rights of a when he was fired for praying at the 50-yard line after school football games, according to news reports. 

The Court ruled 6-3 in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District along political lines—six conservative justices voting for in the majority and its three liberals in dissent.

The conservative majority said Coach Joe Kennedy's prayer was protected by the First Amendment.

“The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority.

The Kennedy case forced the justices balance the free speech and free exercise of religion rights of teachers and coaches with the rights of students without making them feel compelled to participate in unwanted religious practices.

SCOTUSblog, which covers every decision from the Supreme Court summarized the holding by reporting that the Court ruled, “The free exercise and free speech clauses of the First Amendment protect an individual engaging in a personal religious observance from government reprisal; the Constitution neither mandates nor permits the government to suppress such religious expression.”