Professor Marshall Breger's Op-ed was published in the November/December issue of Moment Magazine. The Op-ed is a "dissent" to the Supreme Court's decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District from the perspective of the free exercise concerns of Jewish and other religious minority high school students.

Moment Magazine
November/December 2022 Issue
OPINION Marshall Breger 
The Case of The Praying Coach 
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Late last term, the Supreme Court decided a case that fundamentally transformed the relationship between church and state. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court found that high school football coach Joseph Kennedy could kneel and pray in public with players on the 50-yard line directly after games. With apparent relish, the court formally rejected the so-called Lemon test for church-state entanglement that, in their words, it had “long ago abandoned.”

In 1971, Lemon v. Kurtzman held that for a law or practice regarding religion to pass constitutional muster, it must have a secular purpose, must not have the “primary effect” of advancing or inhibiting religion and must not foster “excessive government entanglement” with religion. In its place, Bremerton proposes a new standard that requires the First Amendment to be interpreted by “reference to historical practices and understandings” and to draw lines that “accord with history and faithfully reflect the understanding of the Founding Fathers.”

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Click here to view the article.