1A in Action: Joe Kennedy and Fighting for Religious Freedom on the Field
In 2008, high school football coach Joe Kennedy started kneeling in prayer after each game. Some players voluntarily joined him.
Years later, in 2015, the coach’s religious practice garnered some attention from another team’s coach. This prompted the public school district to ask him to stop praying on the field — with or without players — fearing potential First Amendment lawsuits.
Kennedy briefly stopped the practice while seeking a religious accommodation from the school district. After those efforts failed, he resumed praying after games, in keeping with his religious convictions.
The school district fired him. Kennedy sued, claiming the school district violated his First Amendment rights.
These events set off a legal case that led to a significant First Amendment ruling.
Editor's note: This profile is part of 1A in Action, an ongoing series that tells the stories of the people, groups and movements that bring the five First Amendment freedoms to life every day.
What was at stake:
Kennedy’s case involved two First Amendment freedoms: religion and speech.
The First Amendment protects freedom of religion in two ways: 1) It ensures the government can’t favor or require any one religion (establishment clause), and 2) it guarantees everyone is free to practice any religion or none (free exercise clause).
Public school employees like Kennedy are not barred from praying or talking about religion, but they can’t require students to join them in prayer or force their religious beliefs on those students.
The First Amendment’s protection for freedom of speech involves more than just speaking. It also includes what you wear, read, sing, and other forms of personal free expression, like prayer.
Public employees, including public school teachers and coaches, can be disciplined by their employers for saying things that are otherwise fully protected by the First Amendment. For instance, school officials could discipline a public school teacher for telling a vulgar joke to a colleague in front of students. In fact, public employees lose all First Amendment protection for speech related to their official job duties.
They, however, don’t lose First Amendment protection for every statement they make at work (or elsewhere). For example, they often can comment on matters of public concern or importance (a broad category of speech) if that speech does not pose a threat to an orderly, efficient, disruption-free workplace.
What happened:
After Kennedy was fired from his coaching role in Bremerton, Washington, he sued, saying the school district violated his freedoms of religion (particularly the free exercise clause) and speech.
The school district argued that because Kennedy is a government employee, his prayer could be interpreted as government endorsement of his religious beliefs, in violation of the establishment clause.
Multiple federal courts initially ruled in favor of the school district, until the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Kennedy in 2022 (Kennedy v. Bremerton School District).
In its ruling, the court considered 1) whether a coach praying during or immediately after school sports is protected speech and 2) whether public schools can prohibit such prayer to avoid violating the establishment clause under the First Amendment.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the majority opinion, said Kennedy “was not engaged in speech [referring to his prayers] ‘ordinarily within the scope’ of his duties as a coach. The court said that once games were over, Kennedy “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.”
The court also concluded that “Kennedy’s prayer constituted private speech on a matter of public concern.”
In the wake of the ruling, Kennedy said, “It's my freedom to be able to just have that moment of prayer by myself.”
While Kennedy got his job back coaching football in Bremerton after the Supreme Court’s decision, he ultimately quit after one game, citing personal reasons.
According to the National Catholic Register, Kennedy also wrote in his resignation letter that he experienced “a series of actions meant to diminish my role and single me out in what I can only believe is retaliation by the school district,” although no legal action followed.
"It's my freedom to be able to just have that moment of prayer by myself."
— Joe Kennedy speaking in the wake of the ruling
“I believe I can best continue to advocate for constitutional freedom and religious liberty by working from outside the school system so that is what I will do,” Kennedy said in a written statement after resigning.
What Joe Kennedy says:
In the lead-up to the 2022 ruling, Kennedy compared his case reaching the Supreme Court to a football team making it to the Super Bowl:
“You train and train and train. And you fight and fight and fight. And finally, we’re gonna be at that Super Bowl. And we’re gonna see what happens at the end.”
— Joe Kennedy speaking with religious liberty legal organization First Liberty Institute, which aided his legal case
After Kennedy chose to leave his coaching job, he said in his statement:
"As I have demonstrated, we must make a stand for what we believe in. In my case, I made a stand to take a knee. I encourage all Americans to make their own stand for freedom and our right to express our faith as we see fit.”
Why it matters to you:
Your freedoms of religion and speech are part of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (the others being press, assembly and petition).
Whether you’re a public school teacher, a football coach or a student, you have the right to believe what you want, and to practice your faith or not practice any faith at all. You also have the right to speak your mind or refrain from speaking.
“People of faith or no faith, everybody has the same rights and that is what the Constitution is all about. It's rights for all Americans,” Kennedy said following the ruling.
While there are some limits to what government employees — especially those in public schools — can do and say, the First Amendment still generally protects your religious and personal expression.
Thoughts from First Amendment experts:
In June 2022, Freedom Forum Vice President and First Amendment Expert Kevin Goldberg wrote about the impact of Kennedy’s win:
“Less than a week after its decision in Carson v. Makin, a case about funding for religious schools, the court again gave priority to the First Amendment’s free exercise clause’s protection for an individual’s religious practice over the establishment clause’s restriction against government endorsement of religion.”
Goldberg wrote that the outcome of the case may represent “an ever-shrinking separation between church and state.”
Though Kennedy’s case is often referred to as one about religion and the push-pull of the establishment clause versus the free exercise clause, it is also a major case about the free speech rights of government employees.
The court found that because Kennedy’s prayers did not constitute speech related to his official coaching duties, he could not be punished for exercising and expressing his personal beliefs.
David L. Hudson Jr., a Freedom Forum fellow, wrote after the decision:
“The Supreme Court’s decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District represents a significant victory for freedom of speech. A key issue in the case was whether Kennedy engaged in protected personal expression or unprotected government expression. The distinction is important, because ... if a public employee is engaged in official, job-duty speech, that employee is engaged in government speech and has no First Amendment rights.”
Learn more:
There’s a lot to learn about freedom of religion and freedom of speech. And here’s much more about the First Amendment. For a list of First Amendment-related legal terms, check out this glossary.
Keep in touch:
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Scott A. Leadingham is a staff writer at Freedom Forum. He can be reached at [email protected].
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