Washington Coach Fired for Praying After Football Games; Day in Court Monday
Pray and lose your job, unless you’re Muslim.
The football coach fired for praying will have oral arguments before the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court Monday.
Joe Kennedy is represented by First Liberty Institute, a religious freedom law firm.
“We feel very prepared,” said First Liberty attorney Mike Berry. But “it’s impossible to predict how oral arguments will go.”
“Constitutionally Protected,” or “Liability?”
Washington’s Bremerton School District suspended Kennedy in 2015. A retired Marine and a Christian, Kennedy prayed at the 50-yard-line after every game. It’s something he began at the start of his coaching job in 2008. Over time, players voluntarily joined in.
“He never received any complaints,” Berry previously told The Stream. “Someone from the opposing team’s school saw the practice and complimented the school … which caused the school to investigate the situation.”
The district told Kennedy to stop praying in September 2015. The superintendent claimed that Kennedy violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. He worried that the prayers exposed the school district to “significant risk of liability.” According to First Liberty, Kennedy’s prayers were “constitutionally protected.”
Kennedy requested a religious accommodation. The request was denied. After a game that October, Kennedy prayed on the field anyway. He was then suspended. In 2016, the district did not renew his contract.
The EEOC granted Kennedy the right to sue for religious discrimination. First Liberty sought to have Kennedy reinstated in time for the 2016 football season. Last October, a district court denied their request for a preliminary injunction to do so.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is representing the school District. Kennedy created “inherently coercive environment for students,” according to attorney Andrew Nellis.
NFL Veterans, High School Coaches Back Kennedy
Two former NFL players submitted an amicus brief in support of Kennedy last November. The Seattle Seahawks’ Steve Largent and the Dallas Cowboys’ Chad Hennings contend Kennedy should get his job back. Largent is also a former Congressman.
“The District Court’s decision all but erases the line between public and private expression” for public school employees, they say.
High school football coaches Kellen Alley and Joseph Thomas also submitted a brief supporting Kennedy. They argue that “public employees … receive First Amendment protection for their private expression.”
In 2016, both Alley and Thomas knelt with their team during the National Anthem. They wanted to “call attention to racially-based social injustices.”
“Wearing school colors or being on the field does not rob a person of his or her right to engage in private expression under the First Amendment,” they said.
Berry agreed. “If the Constitution protects the right of a football coach to kneel to protest injustice, it certainly protects the right of a football coach to kneel in prayer,” he said.
Nellis told the Kitsap Sun the case was about students’ freedom. “Students at public schools should have the right to practice their own faith without being pressured to join in a religious practice that’s not their own,” he said.
“Threat to Liberty Itself”
First Liberty attorneys are hoping for the best on Monday. But they’re also prepared to take further steps.
If the court rules against Kennedy, First Liberty would ask the Ninth Circuit for a rehearing en banc, explained Jeremy Dys. Dys is First Liberty’s Deputy General Counsel. All Ninth Circuit judges would get a chance to review the case, rather than the smaller panel that will hear the case Monday. And if the judges declined to hear the case en banc? The next step would be the U.S. Supreme Court.
“A threat to religious liberty is a threat to liberty itself,” Dys told The Stream. He said a ruling against Kennedy could dampen other free speech, such as Alley’s and Thomas’. It could also threaten rights of other Bremerton teachers.
Dys said the district ordered Kennedy to avoid outward displays of religious expression. If that order stands, expressions of faith such as crosses, hijabs, turbans, and yarmulkes could be called into question.
“This is contrary to the long history in our country of respecting and accommodating religious expression of a free people,” Dys said.
https://stream.org/coach-kennedy-fired-for-praying-after-football-games-gets-day-in-court-monday/
What nonsense and a strawman argument. Doubt there are many if any Muslim head coaches in college football.
But what is these man who were in the military feeling they have the right to do whatever they want.
Praying on the 50 yard line certainly is not private.
And no professional coach could do this and be a successful coach. Let us be real. Some of these college coaches are utter jerks who get away with it because they are dealing with college kids but in the pro’s some of the adult players would not respect this and not think of this as some “accommodation” that they are the “victim” here. Bobby Knight could have never coached professionally as many college coaches because it is all about themselves and college kids really don’t have the leverage to do anything about it.
In fact there was a professional coach Mark Jackson of the Golden State Warriors who also is a Pastor and he caused rifts on the team and was fired because some of his behavior and favoring certain players hurt the team even though they still were pretty good. But the person replacing him Steven Kerr no one can argue took the team to the next level yet when he was fired people claimed it was because of his religion beliefs and that he was black and it wasn’t the reason but I am tired of religious people having this victim complex because they can’t do what they want.
Furthermore, I received in the mail from a group that was pushing prayer and Christianity into the military since I do contribute to conservative causes but I have to say I really was not impressed with this specific mailing that I got because the focus was on the book of John of all books to give to solders. There were no battles in the book of John. They could have had passages on the book of Joshua and the book of Moses as both had to go to war but I guess they are jealous of the Jewish people and their victories so instead focus on the book of John which there were no real wars in the book of John.
So stop fooling yourself. Some of the groups claiming to just want to push religion and that they are a poor victim are focusing on very divisive parts of the bible that have almost nothing to do with their current situation of being in a war and not sure in a case like this that they are not using God simply to push their own denomination over others at a time when that really isn’t even appropriate.