Football, Faith, and the First Amendment – Part 2

We the People

National Constitution Center

News, News Commentary, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2022

⏱️ 55 minutes

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Summary

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. The case is about Joseph Kennedy, a Christian high school football coach in Washington state who regularly prayed before games. Eventually a majority of the players joined in as well, and one player’s parent complained that he felt pressured to pray as well. Kennedy lost his job after refusing to comply with school district’s orders to stop. Nicole Garnett of Notre Dame Law School and Rachel Laser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State join host Jeffrey Rosen to discuss the case; the questions raised around the limits of free speech, free exercise of religion, and the separation of church and state in schools; and how the Court might rule based on its prior jurisprudence—from the Lemon v. Kurtzmann test to the Abington v. Schempp case—and some justices’ questioning of it. Listen to "Football, Faith, and the First Amendment" from January 31, 2019. Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org. Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr. Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome
0:08.9	to We The People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.
0:12.8	The National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by Congress
0:17.9	to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people.
0:23.6	On April 25th, the Supreme Court
0:26.2	will hear oral arguments in Kennedy versus Bremerton School District.
0:30.3	The case is about Joseph Kennedy,
0:32.0	a high school football coach in Washington State,
0:35.0	who prayed in the locker room before games and at the 50-yard line.
0:40.0	He lost his job after refusing to comply with school district orders to stop.
0:45.0	The case raises important questions about free speech and the free exercise of religion.
0:51.4	And to dig into them, we're honored to have two of America's leading
0:55.8	First Amendment experts who have participated in briefs on both sides of the
1:01.3	case. Nicole Garnett is the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School
1:07.5	and author of Lost Classroom, Lost Community, Catholic School's importance in urban America.
1:13.6	She and the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Initiative
1:16.3	wrote a brief in support of the coach.
1:18.8	Nicole, thank you so much for joining.
1:20.8	Thank you for having me.
1:22.4	Great to be here.
1:23.7	And Rachel Lazzer is the president and CEO at Americans United for Separation of Church and
1:28.2	State, which is representing the school district.
	...

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