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Supreme Court justices on Monday readily put themselves in the shoes of a football coach who wanted to pray at midfield after a game, over those of students who might feel pressure to join him, in an expansive decision focused on the “suppression” of religious voices.
The 6-3 ruling against a Washington state school district that suspended coach Joseph Kennedy reinforces a modern court pattern favoring religious conservatives and a greater mingling of church and state.
Overall, the decision reflected the conservative majority’s view that the voices of religious believers are being squelched. Justice Neil Gorsuch, at the outset of his opinion for the court, raised concerns about “censorship and suppression.” Such fears of religion under siege have also emerged in prior decisions and in some justices’ off-bench speeches.