Regardless of whether it was technically a private or public prayer, the question really comes down to whether having the schools representative kneeling down in the middle of the field at a school sponsored event with the intention of gathering the members of the audience in a group prayer to a particular god gives the impression that the school endorses that religion. I, along with the school board, and the lower courts say it does, the Supreme court apparently either disagrees or doesn’t care.
ETA: an edited version of the final sentence of my post was completed after Running_coach responded.
That wasn’t the case before the Supreme Court. If, for example, a student, through their parent, sued Bremerton on Establishment Clause grounds, that would be a separate case.
In THIS case, Mr. Kennedy sued Bremerton because his Free Exercise rights were violated.
Heck, even the cherished by all first amendment right to free speech is circumscribed by time, place and manner restrictions and that was made up by the supreme court. In this case we have a whole amendment restricting what the coach was doing and the SCOTUS just ignored it.
Just to be clear here: What happened in this case was that an agent of the government was using his position as an agent of the government to compel people to pray in a manner that is explicitly prohibited by their religion, and the Supreme Court said that that was OK.
The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause aren’t two separate things to be balanced against each other, but two aspects of the same thing, because allowing any establishment hinders the free exercise of everyone who’s not part of that establishment. By gutting the establishment clause, the Court also gutted the free exercise clause.
They’re separate, with different goals, and they work in different ways. The Court has long recognized the tension between the two; see Everson v Board of Education (1947).
One clause does not take precedence over the other.
One clause does not take precedence over the other because, again, they’re aspects of the same right. If there were any Christians on that football team, their right to free exercise of religion was abridged, by being compelled by an agent of the government to pray in a way prohibited by their religion.
Eh, it was only Jesus who said not to pray in public, and I’ve met very few christians who follow any of the things that he said.
Now, if they were a Christian that followed Jesus, you’d have a point, but I have no reason to suspect that they are a part of that fairly rare belief.