A high school football coach doesn’t have a First Amendment right to pray on the field immediately after games, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held Aug. 23 (Kennedy v. Bremerton Sch. Dist., 2017 BL 295404, 9th Cir., No. 16-35801, 8/23/17).
Joseph A. Kennedy spoke not as a private citizen but as a public employee when he prayed in sight of students and parents in Washington state, the court said in a decision by Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., joined by Judges Dorothy W. Nelson and Morgan Christen.
He therefore wasn’t entitled to a preliminary ...