A former Bremerton High School assistant coach who was fired when he refused to stop praying on the football field after games may have his case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Attorneys on behalf of Joseph Kennedy filed a petition Monday asking Supreme Court justices to reverse a lower court decision that sided with the Bremerton School District’s decision to fire the coach after the 2015 season. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Kennedy’s appeal earlier this year that claimed the district infringed on his religious and personal rights.
The question for the justices, attorneys wrote in the petition, is whether “public school teachers and coaches retain any First Amendment rights when at work and ‘in the general presence of’ students.”