How the Supreme Court’s “praying coach” case may impact schools, explained

Six decades ago, in Engel v. Vitale (1962), the Supreme Court held that the state may not pressure schoolchildren to pray in a particular way. “One of the greatest dangers to the freedom of the individual to worship in his own way,” Justice Hugo Black wrote for the Court, “lay in the Government’s placing its official stamp of approval upon one particular kind of prayer or one particular form of religious services.”

This basic premise – that government employees should not elevate one kind of faith or religious practice over another – is at stake in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which the Supreme Court will hear in late April.

The case involves Joseph Kennedy, a former football coach in Bremerton, Washington. For years, Kennedy incorporated “motivational” prayers into his coaching. Eventually, these prayers culminated in public sessions after games, where players from both teams would kneel around Kennedy as he held up helmets from both teams and led students in prayer.

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