The venue removes all gray area from the case. He was praying in the middle of the football field. Would you or I be allowed to go out to the middle of the football field after the game, for any purpose? We would not. The only reason he was allowed to be there in the first place was because he was an employee of the government-run school, and so everything he did out there, he did as an agent of government.
The SCOTUS, as an appeals court, does not determine or rule on the underlying facts of the case. That’s the purview of the lower court.
You quoted the ruling yourself.
Mr. Kennedy was disciplined for his decision to pray quietly without his students. The district’s policies were not neutral. That’s the basis of their ruling in his favor. Nothing to do with what may be in a youtube video or a CNN interview.
And yet, here they ruled by changing the facts.
Precisely. And SCOTUS decided to overturn the lower courts, who all ruled against Kennedy, by deciding the underlying facts of the case, as used by those lower courts, were inconvenient and decided to change them.
So, thank you for also agreeing SCOTUS just really screwed up no matter how you look at it.
Show us where the Supreme Court changed the facts. Quote the trial court’s findings (where the facts are determined), compare that to the SCOTUS ruling, and show us what has changed.
Sure thing:
Thanks. And the facts of the case were re-iterated at each level up until SCOTUS.
Lawyers are having some trouble with it. “What do we do if SCOTUS decides the facts of the case are suddenly no longer the facts of the case?”
What facts did the Supreme Court change?
In any case, here is what the Supreme Court actually held:
“The Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect an individual engaging in a personal religious observance
from government reprisal; the Constitution neither mandates nor permits the government to suppress such religious expression.”
The School District, (and the lower courts that ruled in their favor), erred in relying on the abandoned Lemon reasoning, claiming that they were trying to avoid an Establishment Clause violation.
Surely, you can’t be serious? That information has been posted multiple times in this very thread.
Here it is again, presented as clearly as possible and all in a single post.
Original court found:
SCOTUS invents their own facts:
More from the original ruling in case you want to nitpick the quote I chose:
Right. The lower court(s) got it wrong. According to the factual record, Kennedy was disciplined for praying quietly without his students.
They can’t do that. Hence the ruling.
…what are you talking about? This is not the case at all. There is video fucking evidence of this.
You quoted it yourself!
“Praying quietly without his students”. That’s what he was disciplined for, which is unconstitutional. That was the question before the Court.
From the ruling:
"Shortly after the October 26 game, the District placed Mr. Kennedy on paid administrative leave and prohibited him from “participat[ing], in any capacity, in . . . football program activities.” Ibid. In a letter explaining the reasons for this disciplinary action, the superintendent criticized Mr. Kennedy for engaging in “public and demonstrative religious conduct while still on duty as an assistant coach” by
offering a prayer following the games on October 16, 23, and 26. Id., at 102. The letter did not allege that Mr. Kennedy performed these prayers with students, and it acknowledged that his prayers took place while students were engaged in unrelated postgame activities. Id., at 103. Additionally, the letter faulted Mr. Kennedy for not being willing to pray behind closed doors. Id., at 102.
In an October 28 Q&A document provided to the public, the District admitted that it possessed “no evidence that students have been directly coerced to pray with Kennedy.”
You can go look at the fucking videos that were posted earlier yourself. But you won’t, because apparently the Holy Words of Gorsuch mean more than actual fucking reality.
This is extremely, EXTREMELY fucking scary. I know you agree with the outcome here, but try to think about the consequences if this kind of blatant ignoring of reality continues. I don’t see how the judiciary will retain any legitimacy at all if it continues pulling these sorts of stunts. This is how you end up with a constitutional crisis.
There is no change there at all. In the first, he prays in view of students, in #2 he prays without his students. It is quite easy to be in full view of a lot of people without being with them.
If only the prayers in this case also involved a prayer rug…
If local politicians show up to join in, and local news shows up to cover it, is he just “in view” but not “with” them?
Or you know…you can actually read the cited decision.
From that same decision, listed under the factual background:
Note the news articles/videos I linked above show him doing exactly this - lifting helmets from both teams and delivering religiously motivated speeches.
But was he really with them? 
I’m not even sure there’s a ‘debate’ anymore.
When people can’t even agree on facts for which there are gobs of incontrovertible evidence, it turns into an exercise in contradiction, which, I believe, is down the hall.