046 The Erickson Report for January 20 to February 2, Page 4: Free Speech for Me

046 The Erickson Report for January 20 to February 2, Page 4: Free Speech for Me

I've got just a couple of minutes so I'm going to wrap up with this:

On January 14, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from a high school football coach in Bremerton, Washington, who lost his job after defying school administrators by kneeling and praying at the 50-yard line after his team’s games.

The coach says the actions of school board violated his rights to free speech and free exercise of religion. The officials responded that the school was entitled to require that its employees refrain from public prayer to avoid the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion.

When the Supreme Court declined to hear an earlier appeal in the case in 2019, four justices - Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas - issued a statement questioning a preliminary ruling in favor of the officials from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, saying that court's "understanding of the free speech rights of public-school teachers is troubling and may justify review in the future.”

And now that future has come.

The coach "led the team in prayer in the locker room before each game, and some players began to join him for his postgame prayer, too, where his practice ultimately evolved to include full-blown religious speeches to, and prayers with, players from both teams after the game, conducted while the players were still on the field and while fans remained in the stands." In other words, he clearly was on the clock.

But that didn't matter to the dissenters at the Ninth Circuit, one of who wrote “It is axiomatic that teachers do not shed their First Amendment protections at the schoolhouse gate. Yet the opinion in this case obliterates such constitutional protections by announcing a new rule that any speech by a public-school teacher or coach, while on the clock and in earshot of others, is subject to plenary control by the government.”

But what really mattered to that judge, as it surely will to the sanctimonious six at SCOTUS, is that the speech involved was Christian prayer. I have no doubt that this case will ultimately come out in the coach's favor and the right wing will celebrate madly, after which I will await the occasion watching with bitter amusement the rapid shuffling of papers and redefinitions of meanings when some public school teacher gets into trouble for hurting the fee-fees of some white kinds by discussing in class white privilege or present-day racism and then says it's their freedom of speech so nyah nyah can't touch me.

The case is Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.

One last last thing: Kelly Shackelford, the president of First Liberty Institute, which represents the coach, said in a statement “By taking this case, the Supreme Court can protect the right of every American to engage in private religious expression, including praying in public, without fear of punishment.”

Protect the private expression of public prayer. For his next trick, Kelly Shackelford will square a circle.