As the school year begins, a heightened focus has been placed on schools both nationally and at the local level. Schools are becoming the battlefield where some of the most high-profile cultural clashes occur, which means...more
Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. __ (2022) (The United States Supreme Court concludes that a coach praying at mid-field following a high school football game was engaged in private religious expression...more
Employers Should Reevaluate Policies on Religious Expression at Work in Light of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District and Carson v. Makin - With the commencement of school, public youth programs and 2022-23 budget cycles,...more
Earlier this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Maine’s tuition assistance program violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. In order to fulfill the Maine Constitution’s guarantee that every child...more
Welcome to Three Point Shot, a newsletter brought to you by the Sports Law Group at Proskauer. Three Point Shot brings you the latest in sports law-related news and provides you with links to related materials. In this double...more
The Supreme Court ruled in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District on June 27, 2022 that a public high school violated the Constitution by restricting a football coach from engaging in “personal” but overt post-game, mid-field...more
The Supreme Court addressed the intersection of the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Speech clauses as they relate to a public employee’s personal religious expression when done in the public eye. In a 6-to-3...more
Historically, the ability of a governmental conduit issuer to issue bonds to facilitate a financing for a religious organization or a religiously affiliated school, university, senior housing facility or other nonprofit...more
A school district infringed on an assistant football coach’s rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment when it suspended him for continuing to publicly pray after football games in violation of its policy,...more
The widely reported Supreme Court case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, No. 21-418 (S. Ct. June 27, 2022) warrants all the attention it has been getting. The Court’s penalty flag against the local Washington school...more
Joseph Kennedy coached football at Bremerton High School, a public school in Washington State. After football games, Kennedy led prayers at the 50-yard line among players, coaches, fans, and, sometimes, politicians. The...more
The United States Supreme Court holding in Carson v. Makin could result in public assistance for religiously affiliated institutions of higher education. The Court ruled that Maine’s tuition assistance program is an...more
The Supreme Court term that ended today once again showed the power of the First Amendment to shape American life. The court invoked the First Amendment in cases regulating social media platforms, prayer at public schools,...more
On Monday June 27, the Supreme Court issued their ruling in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. (We previously reported on this case.) In a 6-3 decision penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the conservative majority...more
Coming off the decisions in the landmark Dobbs and Bruen cases, the rest of the term might seem anticlimactic. Nevertheless, as the shelf is being cleared of the remaining cases, there are still rulings of significance to...more
The SCOTUS recently ruled in favor of a public high school football coach who lost his job after praying in front of students at the 50-yard line following the school’s football games. The Court held that the coach did not...more
On June 27, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, No. 21-418, holding that a football coach’s quiet prayers of thanks after three football games were protected under the Free Exercise and...more
I’m currently in the wilds of Alaska, learning about the training of sled dogs. Nevertheless, word of the Supreme Court’s five most recent decisions has traveled northward. While none of these decisions is earthshaking, they...more
On June 21, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Carson ex rel. O.C. v. Makin, No. 20-1088, holding that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment prohibits a state from imposing a nonsectarian requirement to receive...more
On April 25, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which we previously reported on. As you may recall, the case involves a high school football coach, Joseph Kennedy, who was...more
Kevin George v. McDonough, No. 21-234: This case, involving an agency’s authority to interpret the statutes it regulates, presents the following question: When the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) denies a veteran’s claim...more
In this episode, Akin Gump Supreme Court and appellate practice head Pratik Shah and senior counsel Aileen McGrath review the 2020 Supreme Court Term and preview the big cases and topics in the October 2021 Term. Among the...more
In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, No. 19-123 (June 17, 2021), the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Catholic Social Services (CSS), holding that the “City of Brotherly Love” unconstitutionally excluded CSS from the...more
Nationwide, college athletic programs are facing a dilemma: can they roster transgendered athletes on teams that conform with their gender identity? The answer is: it depends on where the team is located....more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The narrow but unanimous ruling in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia does little to clarify for employers the tensions between religious liberties and LGBTQIA anti-discrimination rights....more