In a statement posted on his website, the 54-year-old Kennedy cited “multiple reasons for his resignation including taking care of an ailing family member out of state.”
“I believe I can best continue to advocate for constitutional freedom and religious liberty by working from outside the school system so that is what I will do,” Kennedy said. “I will continue to work to help people understand and embrace the historic ruling at the heart of our case. As a result of our case, we all have more freedom, not less. That should be celebrated and not disrespected.”
An assistant football coach at Bremerton High School, Kennedy had fought to be rehired for seven years after his postgame midfield prayers provoked concerns from the school district.
Kennedy took a knee and bowed after games for years. He said he was “called” to offer private prayer after games, when he often was joined by players and coaches of both teams.
The practice became an issue for the school district in 2015 when an opposing coach told Bremerton’s principal that he “‘thought it was pretty cool how [the district] would allow’ Kennedy’s religious activity,” the district said in its court brief.
Kennedy and school officials sparred over accommodations of his religious exercise, and he was later placed on paid leave after warnings from the school district, which asked him to keep any on-field praying apart from students. His contract was year-to-year, and for the first time, he received a negative evaluation and a recommendation that he not be rehired. Eventually, Kennedy sued to get his job back at the school, which sits about 18 miles west of Seattle.
Kennedy’s case divided observers, including professional athletes and constitutional experts. Those supporting the school district said that Kennedy radically recast the events that led to his dismissal and that his actions during the 2015 football season were hardly private acts of faith. A post from his Facebook page in which he wrote, “I think I just might have been fired for praying,” drew national attention and elicited support from prominent advocates, including former president Donald Trump.
Kennedy lost twice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, although judges were split in the case. The Supreme Court chose to hear Kennedy’s case in January 2022, with its conservative majority signaling that April that it was sympathetic to his case. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in June of last year that the Bremerton school board discriminated against Kennedy by disciplining him for praying at midfield after games.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch authored the majority opinion for his fellow conservatives in the decision, writing that Kennedy’s prayers are protected by the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech and religious exercise. He said the school board’s discipline of Kennedy was unwarranted, even when framed as a violation of the separation of church and state.
“Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic — whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head,” Gorsuch wrote.
The court’s liberal bloc dissented, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing that the majority “elevates one individual’s interest in personal religious exercise, in the exact time and place of that individual’s choosing, over society’s interest in protecting the separation between church and state, eroding the protections for religious liberty for all.”
Kennedy, who now lives in Florida, regained his job at Bremerton and joined the team Friday for his first game since 2015. He “strode alone to midfield, knelt and prayed for about 10 seconds” after Bremerton’s win that night, according to the Associated Press, which noted that he was not joined by anyone on a mostly empty field.
Robert Barnes contributed to this report.