Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a high school football coach who lost his job for kneeling at midfield after games to say a short personal prayer, holding that the First Amendment protected his right to engage in that private religious expression.
The decision also formally declared that the Lemon test — the legal framework courts had used for over 50 years to evaluate whether government action improperly mixes government and religion — is no longer good law, replacing it with a standard rooted in historical practice.
“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.”
The majority's closing statement on why the First Amendment protects a coach's personal postgame prayer.
How it got here: The federal district court granted summary judgment to the school district; the Ninth Circuit affirmed; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the coach's appeal.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Joseph Kennedy, a football coach at a Washington state public high school, had a practice of kneeling at midfield after games to offer a brief, quiet personal prayer of thanks. After learning of the practice in 2015, the school district ordered him to stop, saying it feared a reasonable observer would think the district was endorsing religion. Kennedy continued praying after three October 2015 games, was placed on paid administrative leave, and did not return for the next season.
The question before the Court
Did a public school district violate the Constitution when it fired a football coach for kneeling at midfield after games to offer a brief personal prayer?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that the school district violated the coach's First Amendment rights under both the Free Exercise Clause and the Free Speech Clause. His postgame prayer was not part of his official coaching duties; it occurred during a window when coaches were free to make personal calls, check their phones, or visit with friends. That made it protected private expression, not government speech the district could control.
The district's only justification — that allowing the prayer would make it appear to endorse religion — rested on the Lemon test, a framework the Court declared abandoned. Under the correct approach, the Establishment Clause is interpreted through historical practice and understanding, not through what a hypothetical "reasonable observer" might think. A coach's quiet, personal, postgame prayer offered without coercion and without students joining in falls nowhere near the kind of government sponsorship of religion the Establishment Clause was written to prohibit.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Public school coaches, teachers, and other government employees now have stronger protection to engage in personal religious expression — like a quiet prayer — during free moments at work. School districts can no longer invoke the risk that a "reasonable observer" might perceive religious endorsement as the basis for silencing such expression, removing the primary tool districts had used to restrict employee religious activity.
What changes now
The Ninth Circuit's ruling is reversed and Kennedy is entitled to summary judgment on his First Amendment claims, ending the litigation in his favor. Going forward, lower courts must evaluate Establishment Clause claims through a history-and-tradition lens rather than by asking what a reasonable observer might perceive about religious expression. School districts and other public employers will need to reassess policies that restrict employees' personal religious expression during non-duty moments, as the old endorsement-based justification for those restrictions is no longer valid.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether public employees' Free Exercise rights differ from the general public's, what level of scrutiny a government employer must meet when restricting a public employee's religious expression, or whether the Free Exercise Clause sometimes requires a different analysis at step one of the Pickering-Garcetti public-employee speech framework.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence in part — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh joined the majority in full except for Part III-B, the section applying the Pickering-Garcetti framework to Kennedy's Free Speech Clause claim. By not joining that section, he declined to fully endorse the Court's analysis of when a public school employee's speech is 'private' rather than government speech, leaving those questions open while agreeing entirely that the district violated Kennedy's constitutional rights.
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas joined the majority but wrote separately to flag two unresolved questions. First, whether public employees' rights under the Free Exercise Clause might be treated differently from the rights of the general public — analogous to how free speech rights of public employees are limited to matters of public concern. Second, what standard of scrutiny a government employer must satisfy to justify restricting a public employee's religious expression, a question the majority left open because the district failed under every possible standard.
Concurrence — Justice Alito
Justice Alito joined the full opinion but wrote separately to note that Kennedy's expression was unlike any prior public-employee speech case: it occurred during a brief lull in his duties when he was acting in a purely private capacity. He emphasized that the Court does not decide what specific standard governs such expression under the Free Speech Clause — only that retaliation for it cannot be justified under any of the standards discussed.
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor argued that the majority misread the facts: Kennedy's prayer was not quiet or private but was a demonstrative public act rooted in years of leading students in prayer at the same time and place. She contended the majority effectively overrules the Lemon test and the endorsement inquiry without honestly saying so, replaces them with a vague history-and-tradition standard that gives school administrators no workable guidance, and applies a nearly toothless version of coercion analysis that ignores the unique pressures adolescent students face when their coach prays visibly in front of them.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first examined the Free Exercise Clause claim. Under its precedents, a government policy that targets religious practice rather than applying neutral, generally applicable rules triggers *strict scrutiny* — the most demanding constitutional test, requiring the government to show a very strong ('compelling') reason and a closely tailored response. The school district conceded its policy was neither neutral nor generally applicable, because it banned Kennedy's religious activity while permitting other coaches to attend briefly to personal secular activities after games.
- Next, under the *Pickering-Garcetti* framework — the two-step test courts use when a government employee claims First Amendment protection for workplace speech — the Court asked whether Kennedy spoke in his private capacity or as a government representative. His prayers were not part of his coaching duties, not government-commissioned speech, and occurred during a period when coaches were free to engage in all manner of personal activities. The Court held his prayer was private speech, clearing the first step of the framework.
- With the burden shifting to the district, the Court examined whether the district's interest in avoiding an Establishment Clause violation could justify suppressing Kennedy's protected expression. The district and the Ninth Circuit both relied on the *Lemon* test (from a 1971 case), which assessed a government action's purpose, effects, and potential for entangling government with religion, and also asked whether a 'reasonable observer' would see the government as endorsing religion.
- The Court rejected the Lemon framework entirely. It declared that the Court had 'long ago abandoned' Lemon and its endorsement-test offshoot because they were abstract, ahistorical, and generated confusion in lower courts. In their place, the Establishment Clause must be interpreted by reference to historical practices and understandings of what an actual government establishment of religion looks like.
- Under the history-and-tradition standard, a coach's brief personal prayer on an athletic field — offered quietly while students were otherwise occupied, with no evidence of coercion and no students actually joining in after any of the three relevant games — does not resemble the government sponsorship of religion the Establishment Clause was designed to stop. The district's coercion argument also failed; it acknowledged there was 'no evidence that students were directly coerced to pray,' and Kennedy had repeatedly offered to pray only after students left the field.
- Because there was no genuine conflict between the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses — only what the Court called a 'phantom' conflict based on a misreading of the Establishment Clause — the district had no constitutional justification for silencing Kennedy's protected expression. A government entity's concern about imagined constitutional violations cannot justify actual violations of an individual's First Amendment rights.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Abrogates Lemon v. Kurtzman (403 U. S. 602)
The Court declared it has 'long ago abandoned' the Lemon test and its endorsement-test offshoot, replacing them with a history-and-tradition standard.
Distinguishes Lee v. Weisman (505 U. S. 577)
Distinguished because that case involved a clergyman reciting prayers at a graduation ceremony where the school had compelled attendance and participation.
Distinguishes Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe (530 U. S. 290)
Distinguished because that case involved a prayer broadcast over the public-address system to a captive audience, unlike Kennedy's quiet personal prayer.