Supreme Court decisions Today

People are reacting to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that said it was OK for a high school football coach in Washington state to kneel and pray after games.

“The religious liberty protected by the Constitution is abridged when the state affirmatively sponsors the particular religious practice of prayer,” Justice John Paul Stevens said in the 6-3 opinion nixing the school prayer plan. In subsequent decades, the Supreme Court would reject an Alabama law permitting a minute of prayer or meditation during the school day and prohibited prayers led by religious leaders at school graduation ceremonies. Vitale that the Board of Regents of New York could not impose a prayer on students. Amen.”) was, by its very nature, sufficient to constitute an illegal establishment of religion, even if participation in the prayer was not overtly coerced. But several other parents objected, saying that players and students could feel ridiculed or excluded if they were in the minority who did not join in the prayers. But civil libertarians and many educators said allowing a coach or any other school authority figure to lead a prayer amounted to the kind of establishment of religion that the Constitution forbids. A 60-year-old decision by the high court to bar an official prayer in New York schools had created a bright line for school officials: that practices and policies on campus should have strictly secular purposes. “Some parties see a political game to be made from having our public schools be theaters for conflict,” Rogers of UCLA said. Monday’s decision came in the case of Joe Kennedy, an assistant coach at Bremerton High School in Washington state. “One of the results of this decision is that it probably is going to open up more conflict in schools,” Rogers said. “It’s probably going to create more challenges for principals and other district leaders, as new efforts are made to bring religion into the space of public schools. And it is not at all clear where the court will draw the line.”

The 6-to-3 decision is the latest example of the court's conservative supermajority requiring more accommodation for religion in public schools and less ...

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Joseph Kennedy, a former high school football coach in Bremerton, Wash., had a constitutional right to pray on the field after his team's games, ...

Over the last 60 years, the Supreme Court has rejected prayer in public schools, at least when it was officially required or part of a formal ceremony like a high school graduation. In the process of ruling for Mr. Kennedy, the majority disavowed a major precedent on the First Amendment’s establishment clause, Lemon v. She acknowledged that the test had been subject to frequent criticism by various members of the court. Players recognize that gaining the coach’s approval may pay dividends small and large, from extra playing time to a stronger letter of recommendation to additional support in college athletic recruiting.” Justice Gorsuch wrote that Mr. Kennedy had sought only to offer a brief, silent and solitary prayer. Bremerton School District, No. 21-418, pitted the rights of government workers to free speech and the free exercise of their faith against the Constitution’s prohibition of government endorsement of religion and the ability of public employers to regulate speech in the workplace. Mr. Kennedy had served as an assistant coach at a public high school in Bremerton, Wash., near Seattle. For eight years, he routinely offered prayers after games, with students often joining him. The vote was 6 to 3, with the court’s three liberal members in dissent. The two sides disagreed about whether Mr. Kennedy complied. Wade and recognizing a Second Amendment right to bear arms outside the home for self-defense. “Students also depend on this approval for tangible benefits. Not everything school employees do during work hours is official conduct, Justice Gorsuch wrote.

The court ruled a Washington state coach was praying as a private citizen when he knelt after a game on the field, not as an employee of the district.

“You’re going to see the trend or the pattern in the schools where prayer occurs openly,” Jones said. How about a teacher talking to their students about their personal religious beliefs?” Tapp said. “Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has issued its decision in Kennedy’s favor, it is abundantly clear that government cannot infringe on personal displays of prayer.” “Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote. Monday’s ruling involved the case of Joe Kennedy, a high school football coach, who was fired for refusing to stop kneeling in prayer after games. What Texas public school leaders cannot do is lead their classes in prayer, force or compel students to participate in a religious activity or prohibit students from privately practicing their own religion.

The verdict on a football coach's prayers from the conservative-majority bench could chip away at the separation of church and state.

The prayers—which took place center-field in front of crowds of other students and parents, and sometimes local politicians or television news crews—constituted a public display, they argued. However, the Supreme Court has historically rejected the open demonstration of prayer in public schools, in the interest of upholding a separation of church and state. The case centers on Joseph Kennedy, an assistant coach at a public high school in Bremerton, Washington, a small community outside of Seattle. For eight years, Kennedy would routinely pray at the 50-yard line immediately after games—often joined by student athletes, who would surround him, heads bowed, at the field’s midway mark.

Five Republican-appointed justices are ambitious and impatient to change American law.

But the repeated appearance of certain items can start to look odd. The court has already agreed to hear a case about whether Alabama can draw a congressional map that packs many Black voters into a single congressional district, effectively diluting their political power. Even before President Donald Trump’s three appointees shifted the court to the right, it tended to take a laissez-faire approach, limiting Congress’s ability to regulate corporate behavior. Adam Liptak recently wrote an article that explains why the issue is so important — especially when many Republican legislators have signaled a willingness to overturn election results. Two other contentious subjects on the court’s docket are election law and business regulation. It’s an issue that seems likely to define the court’s next term in the way that abortion did this term. Yet affirmative action — at least as it has typically been practiced in the U.S. — tends to be unpopular. If that happens, the number of Black students at selective colleges seems especially likely to decline. That approach has probably hurt the policy’s support among many white, Asian and even Latino voters. In today’s newsletter, I want to focus on the divisive decisions that are more likely to come soon. In his 12-page concurrence, Kavanaugh wrote that he wanted to address “how this decision will affect other precedents involving issues such as contraception and marriage.” He then listed four cases dealing with those issues, including the 2015 ruling establishing a right to same-sex marriage. In a separate concurrence explaining his vote, Justice Brett Kavanaugh — one of the impatient, ambitious five — explicitly signaled that those other rights were safe.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday said she's preparing votes on a number of bills protecting abortion as well as codifying landmark Supreme ...

Wade, warranting an expansion of the number of supreme court justices, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. Jackson calling for the court to revisit landmark rulings protecting same-sex relationships, marriage equality and access to contraceptives. The Supreme Court "set a torch" to its legitimacy with its decision to overturn Roe v. - Pelosi, in her letter, called to elect more Democrats so they can "eliminate the filibuster so that we can restore women’s fundamental rights — and freedom for every American." Driving the news: In a "Dear Colleague" letter to her caucus, Pelosi hinted at bills to respond to Justice Clarence Thomas' concurring opinion in Dobbs v. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday said she's preparing votes on a number of bills protecting abortion as well as codifying landmark Supreme Court decisions as a response to the court overturning Roe v.

Clarence Thomas used the Supreme Court ruling overturning the right to abortion from Roe v. Wade to call for reversal of rulings on gay rights.

"Loving" is a reference to "Loving v. Thomas, in his concurring opinion Friday on the decision to overturn the 49-year-old Roe v. "Laws defining marriage as between one man and one woman do not share this sordid history," Thomas added. Hodges, said Thomas left Loving v. The sentence was suspended after they agreed to leave the state and not return for 25 years. "Mr. Justice Thomas had much to say today about my loving marriage. - Thomas in a concurring opinion on the overturning of Roe v. Virginia off the list of cases he wants reverse because "it affects him personally." Virginia," the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned a Virginia law barring interracial marriages. Thomas, who is Black, lives with his white wife Virginia "Ginni" Thomas in Virginia — a mirror image of the white husband and Black wife who were the plaintiffs in "Loving." A gay Connecticut Supreme Court justice suggested that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was being hypocritical in calling for reconsideration of rulings ensuring legal rights for gay people — while not calling for the repeal of a similar ruling that allows Thomas to be married to a white woman. - McDonald, who is gay, noted in a Facebook post that Thomas had not called for the repeal of a similar ruling that allows Thomas, who is Black, to be married to a white woman, Ginni Thomas, while living with her in Virginia.

Although the Supreme Court issued the two most important opinions of the term last week, upending near 50-year-old precedent on abortion and expanding gun ...

Now the court will decide whether a state has the authority to prosecute non-indians who commit crimes against Indians in Indian country. Le Roy Torres, a veteran and former employee of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told the state agency that he could no longer serve as a state trooper and sought a comparable job to accommodate his service-related disability. A lower court wiped away a Trump-era rule in 2021 and the Biden administration's EPA is currently working on a new rule.

The Supreme Court's abortion ruling rocked the nation last week but a decision in West Virginia vs. the EPA could also be huge. Liz Peek.

That limiting guidance appears to have support from the conservative justices on the court today. Political parties rise and fall, to be sure, and can also change the nation’s direction. Obama’s approach was to reinterpret the 1970 Clean Air Act to allow a nationwide cap-and-trade regimen, requiring power plants to offset emissions by investing in other low-carbon facilities. A ruling in favor of West Virginia would reverse a decades-long trend in which Congress has handed off to federal agencies decisions our legislators refuse or are unable to make. Restricting the power of the alphabet soup authorities might require that our representatives and senators actually do their jobs, allowing less time for posturing and passing pointless dead-on-arrival bills. To further their climate agenda, Democrats have been able to hide the full-in price tag of abandoning oil and gas as our main energy sources by creating tax subsidies for renewables. Successive administrations can easily change the rules by which such agencies operate. Subsequently, the Trump White House rescinded the program. Wade that abortion laws are more appropriately left up to the people’s elected representatives, it may decide in West Virginia vs. The state of West Virginia, joined by two coal companies and others, sued the EPA, arguing the plan was an abuse of power. A decision that puts Congress in charge would stall environmental rules intended to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. the EPA could also be huge

The conservative majority ruled for Joseph Kennedy, an assistant football coach who prayed on the 50-yard line after each game.

That could lead officials to err on the side of allowing certain religious expressions that they might have otherwise tried to limit. But the latest case could lead them to be more concerned about violating individuals’ religious freedom rather than violating the separation of church and state. But schools cannot bar religious expression just because it might appear to some that the school is “endorsing” religion. Gorsuch dismissed that as hearsay, and a remnant of the more public prayers that Kennedy had agreed to stop. “Today’s opinion provides little in the way of answers.” Of course, as discussed, the distinction between public and private is not always clear. Only his “private” prayer — while not acting in his capacity as a coach — is protected, the decision suggests. “This case is not about the limits on an individual’s ability to engage in private prayer at work,” she wrote for the three Democratic-appointed justices. In this particular case, Kennedy had led prayer with students in the locker room and held religiously inspired pep talks after the game. He emphasized that Kennedy’s final three prayers — which ultimately triggered the district suspending him — did not involve any players from his team. Kennedy had lost his job after refusing the school district’s directive to pray out of public view. Just last week the conservative majority also said that religious schools cannot be singled out for exclusion from public funding.

The conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court has chipped away at the wall separating church and state in a series of new rulings, eroding American legal ...

Most of the religious-rights rulings in recent years involved Christian plaintiffs. It stops the government from interfering with churches but it also protects diverse religious expression," Windham added. Those who favor a strict separation of church and state are concerned that landmark Supreme Court precedents, including a 1962 ruling that prohibited prayer in public schools, could be imperiled. It was President Thomas Jefferson who famously said in an 1802 letter that the establishment clause should represent a "wall of separation" between church and state. Gorsuch said that "in no world may a government entity's concerns about phantom violations justify actual violations of an individuals First Amendment rights." In Monday's ruling, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the court's aim was to prevent public officials from being hostile to religion as they navigate the establishment clause.