Bremerton High School

Three years after the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the case allowing former assistant football coach Joe Kennedy to pray on the field is reshaping how courts interpret the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. Kennedy prayed once more after the ruling in 2023, then left coaching and moved to Florida, but the legal precedent has outlasted his return.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals cited Kennedy 112 times in a narrow April ruling upholding a Texas law requiring the Ten Commandments in public classrooms, treating the case as the new standard for measuring religious establishment against founding-era practice. More than two dozen Texas families have since asked the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to that law. Separately, Kennedy testified before the Trump administration's Religious Liberty Commission, which cited his case as a landmark win for religious liberty and recommended the Justice Department clarify church-state separation standards. Legal experts say the shifts could extend to school prayer, public funding of religious organizations, and employment rules at religious institutions receiving government subsidies.