The public school football coach who was under scrutiny for praying on the field after games received a ruling in his favor based on first amendment grounds, despite some students feeling that if they didn't participate in the prayer there would be consequences for them. Jimmy Hoover, the Supreme Court editor at large for Law 360, joined Cheddar News to break down the fallout from the case. "The court basically killed off what was known as, I don't want to get too nerdy here, but it was called this Lemon endorsement test, and what that test held — and it was adopted decades ago — was that the government couldn't do anything that a reasonable observer would interpret as being an endorsement of religion," he said.

Cheddar's News Wrap

How SCOTUS Ruling on Coach Prayer Throws Out Religious Lemon Test

and a former high school football coach from Washington State scored a win at the Supreme Court. Today. He ruled they ruled that a school district violated his First Amendment rights for firing him over preying on the football field, joseph Kennedy lost his job at Bremerton high school assistant coach in 2015 for postgame prayers on the 50 yard line. This was the Supreme Court's latest ruling in the string of cases dealing with religion and as part of the nation's highest courts, ideological shift to the right. Joining me now is Jimmy Hoover, Supreme Court editor at large for law 360 and Jimmy. What were the arguments on both sides of this case? Well, the coach in this case argued that he had a first amendment right to participate in what he called a brief and silent prayer by himself at the 50 yard line at the conclusion of the school's football games in Bremerton High School, which is a uh in Bremerton Washington, a city near Seattle. Um of course the school district disagreed and said um that basically due to his role as a public school employee and position of authority for the students, that he couldn't participate in these prayers and uh there's been a bit of a factual dispute over uh Coach Kennedy's kind of characterization of these prayers. Was it really a personal prayer because he had a years long tradition of actually leading students, his own players in what were essentially motivational speeches um interspersed with religious themes. And so that kind of materialized between Justice Gorsuch's majority decision in which he kind of credits uh Kennedy's description of events as in this brief in silent prayer versus justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing on behalf of the three uh liberal dissenters said that basically the majority had misconstrued the facts of the case and what they essentially done was allowed uh Coach Kennedy to effectively endorse religion as a public school employee. Now, let's talk about the implications of this ruling. So coach Kennedy, he happens to be a white christian male. So will this ruling also guarantee the expression of other religions at school? I mean, in the words of Justice Gorsuch's majority Sure, he says that basically, you know, allowing schools to ban or prohibit demonstrably religious exercise, could essentially allow school district to force a muslim woman to remove a headscarf. Um That's in the telling of Justice Gorsuch's majority decision. Now, a lot of observers question whether, you know, the Supreme Court would have even taken this case, had it involved a circumstance in which it was a muslim prayer being led on on the 50 yard line of a public school as opposed to a christian prayer, one in which, you know, was widely celebrated by, you know, members of the community in Bremerton, certain members that is, and even some state legislators, I think it's a fair question to ask. Um but basically what the liberal dissenters, Justices are saying is that the school that schools and government generally should not be entangled in promoting religion on schoolhouse grounds while they're officially on duty. And so we're still kind of, you know, this the ink is barely drying on this decision. Um there's there's going to be a lot of time to kind of reflect on just what the actual takeaways from the holding are, but on the parts of progressives and other proponents of separation between church and state, there's a lot of worry that this is just going to encourage more public officials to potentially, you know, do things that put students in uncomfortable positions, students who might not share those same religious beliefs. And in fact, there is in the record of this particular case, an anonymous parent who came forward on behalf of his son, who was an avowed atheist who uh in the in the telling of the anonymous parent at the school district, that he felt pressured to participate in these school prayers, um out of a fear of being deprived playing time. And so that just goes to show that kind of sensitivity around some of these issues, especially when you have, you know, public public school employees, like um assistant Merton football high school coach joe Kennedy who was a widely respected um member of the community, who many people looked up to, What kind of effect do you think this ruling will have on, like you said, separation between church and state? Well, I think it is going the immediate takeaway for that's going to have instant repercussions is that the court basically killed off what was known as, I don't want to get too nerdy here, but it was called this lemon endorsement test and what that test held and it was adopted decades ago was that the government could do anything that a reasonable observer would interpret as being an endorsement of religion. Now, you know, conservative religious advocates have, have decried this test for many years. They say it basically gives heckler's veto to any kind of religion in the public square, whether that's, you know, insignia, religious insignia on like a government building or potentially, you know, the 10 Commandments or something along those lines, and that that's not exactly what the establishment clause which separates church and state is meant to accomplish. And so with that. Now, off the books, you are probably going to see a lot of courts tolerate more and more, you know, religious themes, whether religious demonstrations or just religious practice in the public square, you know, whether that's by, you know, whether that's the reading of a of a prayer, opening up a legislative session at the town council or it's, you know, a teacher at the end of the school day kind of in public, bowing his head in prayer in a way that, you know, some students may or may not feel as an official endorsement religion, those claims are not going to be able to be litigated anymore. So we're still going to figure out what's going to happen going forward. But the Supreme Court certainly doesn't seem to be very sympathetic claims along these lines that the school district had made. Now, the Supreme Court. And this is my last question for you, also made a ruling on religion when it came out of the State of Maine. What was the case there? And what was the ruling? Yeah, this was this was one of you, right. It was just last week, and the Supreme Court basically said that a main tuition assistance program that had excluded religious schools was unconstitutional. So, Maine has had this program for decades. It's a very rural state. More than half of the school districts in Maine don't have a local high school. And so under this program, which had existed for many years, the state would provide tuition assistance for families to be able to send their Children to private schools because they didn't have this local school Now under the program since 1981, they've said, Okay, but certain certain schools are ineligible to receive these funds. Those are religious or sectarian schools, and a number of parents to in fact, who wanted to uh send their kids to to to to religious schools to christian schools. Um They challenged in court and litigated it up through the courts and the Supreme Court eventually ruled in favor of them and said yes, the government of Maine cannot exclude religious institutions from generally available government benefits programs like Maine's tuition assistance program here. That is, in the words of Chief Justice roberts, religious discrimination, pure and simple are anti religious discrimination. And and and Justice Sotomayor, who wrote another dissent in that case. In addition to the one she wrote this morning, said, you know, this court, this conservative majority, this new conservative majority of the court is effectively paying only like only paying attention to the free exercise clause of the constitution, which says the government shall not, you know, deprived people's ability to exercise religion. But she says there's another clause that says the government shall not establish an official religion, that's the establishment clause. And Sotomayor as she did today last week. She said, the this Supreme Court, the Supreme Court majority, is focusing exclusively on the free exercise clause to the expense of the establishment clause and is further eroding and really tearing down in her words, this separation, this wall between church and state, jimmy Hoover. Supreme Court Editor at large for law 3 60 jimmy. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your expertise