{"id":1452632,"date":"2022-04-25T09:30:24","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T13:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1452632"},"modified":"2022-04-25T09:30:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T13:30:28","slug":"supreme-court-to-hear-case-about-football-coach-fired-over-praying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/supreme-court-to-hear-case-about-football-coach-fired-over-praying\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court To Hear Case About Football Coach Fired Over Praying"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsupreme-court-to-hear-case-about-football-coach-fired-over-praying%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1452632&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/04\/Untitled-design-28.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The Supreme Court will hear the case of former Washington state high school football coach who was fired after kneeling in prayer following football games.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph Kennedy, a Marine veteran, was an assistant football coach for the Bremerton High School (BHS) varsity team in 2008 when he started a tradition of kneeling and praying after games. Some students later volunteered to join him.\u00a0In 2015, a school administrator addressed the issue with the coach after an opposing team complained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think I just might have been fired for praying,\u201d Kennedy would later post on Facebook.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Tune in to <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mbVQNWAE0O\">https:\/\/t.co\/mbVQNWAE0O<\/a> at 8:45a CT. We&#8217;ll be on the Court&#8217;s steps and stream the argument. After the case is heard, join Facebook Live to hear from Paul Clement, Kelly Shackelford, and Coach Kennedy. It&#8217;s a big day, and we want you to be part of it! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4YTsHaXlTR\">pic.twitter.com\/4YTsHaXlTR<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 First Liberty Institute (@1stLiberty) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/1stLiberty\/status\/1518522714797088769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 25, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>After an investigation, Kennedy was later placed on <a href=\"https:\/\/firstliberty.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/20200722_Kennedy_Excerpts-of-Record_ER317-18.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">administrative leave<\/a>\u00a0and barred from \u201cparticipating in any capacity in the BHS football program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Non-profit conservative legal organization First Liberty Institute took up Kennedy\u2019s case in 2016, and lost in both district court and at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court also denied the request, but four justices \u2013 Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh \u2013 issued a statement expressing serious concern about how the school district and the lower courts had understood the First Amendment rights of public school teachers.<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court sent the case back U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton, who again sided with the school district in 2020, as did the 9th Circuit in mid-2021. Attorneys with First Liberty and Kirkland &#038; Ellis <a href=\"https:\/\/firstliberty.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/FINAL-Kennedy-Cert-Petition_Redacted.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener follow noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" data-feathr-click-track=\"true\">refiled<\/a>\u00a0the case at the U.S. Supreme Court in September 2021 and the high court agreed in January to hear it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday, nearly eight years after being fired for praying by himself at the 50-yard line after a football game, Coach Kennedy filed his final brief with the U.S. Supreme Court,\u201d Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/firstliberty.org\/cases\/coachkennedy\/#simple2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">statement<\/a> after filing a brief last week.<\/p>\n<p>Americans United for Separation of Church and State released a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.au.org\/media\/press-releases\/Bremerton-SCOTUS-Cert-Grant\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">statement<\/a>\u00a0opposing the Supreme Court\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo child attending public school should have to pray to play school sports. No student should ever be made to feel excluded \u2013 whether it\u2019s in the classroom or on the football field \u2013 because they don\u2019t share the religious beliefs of their coaches, teachers or fellow students,\u201d Americans United President and CEO Rachel Laser said.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the full report from First Liberty below:<\/p>\n[embedded content]\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies for breaking news, investigative reporting, sports, podcasts, in-depth analysis, books, and entertainment for a reason: because we believe in what we do. We believe in our country, in the value of truth and the freedom to speak it, and in the right to challenge tyranny wherever we see it. Believe the same? <a class=\"in-cell-link\" href=\"https:\/\/utm.io\/ueuP8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Become a member now and join our mission<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Supreme Court will hear the case of former Washington state high school football coach who was fired after kneeling in prayer following football games.Joseph Kennedy, a Marine veteran, was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":325,"featured_media":1480347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1452632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1452632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1480347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1452632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1452632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1452632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}