On Wednesday, Aug. 16, Joe Kennedy stepped onto the field of Bremerton High School to coach the football team for the first time in eight years.
Kennedy was suspended in 2015 following a dispute about him praying in the locker room and on the field. However, following a Supreme Court victory in 2022, he has been reinstated.
Kennedy, who became an assistant coach at the Bremerton, Washington, school in 2008, had long made it his practice to pray on the 50-yard line of the field at the end of games. Soon, students began to join him. Kennedy was also known to lead prayers and motivational talks in the locker room.
When the school district discovered that Kennedy had been leading students in prayer, it ordered him to stop, which he did. Nevertheless, the coach felt compelled to continue personally praying at the 50-yard line, and he expressed that students were free to join him.
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Interpreting Kennedy’s actions as both insubordinate and unconstitutional, the school district suspended Kennedy’s employment until his contract expired. The district subsequently declined to renew his contract.
While the school district argued that Kennedy was infringing upon the religious liberty of students by leading prayer while operating in an official capacity as an employee of a public school district, Kennedy argued that the school district was infringing upon his religious liberty by barring him from praying publicly.
Kennedy sued the school district, and the case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. In a 6-3 ruling in Kennedy’s favor, the Supreme Court indicated that Kennedy’s prayers were protected under the First Amendment.
The victory came after years of lower courts siding with the school district.
Kennedy was reinstated to the school’s football coaching team in March, and he took the field for the first time last week to help lead practice.
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“It’s been a long road and many heartbreaking years, but it’s great that it’s finally worked out,” Kennedy told KING. “Everyone who has been supporting me and praying for me is what kept me going.”
