Judges back school’s hostility to prayer: 9th Circuit denies coach has 1st Amendment right

Joe Kennedy, Bremerton High School football coach in Washington, is standing strong on his right to pray.

The judges at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most overturned appeals court in the country, Thursday sided with a school district’s hostile manner toward the post-game prayers of a football coach.

A three-judge panel on the court earlier has ruled in the case of coach Joe Kennedy that when he “kneeled and prayed on the fifty-yard line immediately after games while in view of students and parents, he spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen, and his speech therefore was constitutionally unprotected.”