Supreme Court takes up case of football coach suspended for praying

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court will hear a case of a former high school football coach removed from his job because he refused to stop praying on the field.

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FOX 5's Chief Legal Correspondent Katie Barlow says Coach Joseph Kennedy, a former football coach at a public high school outside Seattle, used to kneel on the 50-yard line after football games to say a quiet prayer.

Now he's suing the school district for his job back after he was put on administrative leave and then his contract was allowed to expire.

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Kennedy argues that the school violated his first amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

The school argues that allowing Kennedy to hold these prayers sessions in the middle of the field actually violates a different provision of the first amendment -- the establishment clause, which prohibits the government, including public schools, from endorsing a religion.

This is not Kennedy's first trip to the supreme court, Barlow says. He asked the court to hear his case back in 2018 and got denied.

At the time, four of the court's conservative justices -- Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh -- wrote separately to suggest it may be time to revisit the free speech rights of public school teachers.

Since then, Justice Amy Coney Barrett has replaced Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the bench, which may affect the court's decision in this case.