Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-418_i425.pdf
Page Number: 70

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KENNEDY v. BREMERTON SCHOOL DIST. 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

7–8) (noting the inaccuracies risked when courts “play am-
ateur historian”).

For now, it suffices to say that  the Court’s history-and-
tradition test offers essentially no guidance for school ad-
ministrators.  If even judges and Justices, with full adver-
sarial  briefing  and  argument  tailored  to  precise  legal  is-
sues, regularly disagree (and err) in their amateur efforts
at history, how are school administrators, faculty, and staff 
supposed to adapt?  How will school administrators exercise 
their  responsibilities  to  manage  school  curriculum  and 
events  when  the  Court  appears  to  elevate  individuals’
rights to religious exercise above all else?  Today’s opinion 
provides little in the way of answers; the Court simply sets 
the stage for future legal changes that will inevitably follow 
the Court’s choice today to upset longstanding rules. 

D 

Finally, the Court acknowledges that the Establishment 
Clause  prohibits  the  government  from  coercing  people  to
engage in religion practice, ante, at 24–25, but its analysis
of  coercion  misconstrues  both  the  record  and  this  Court’s 
precedents.

The Court claims that the District “never raised coercion 
concerns” simply because the District conceded that there 
was  “ ‘no  evidence  that  students  [were]  directly  coerced  to 
pray with Kennedy.’ ”  Ante, at 25 (emphasis added).  The 
Court’s suggestion that coercion must be “direc[t]” to be cog-
nizable under the Establishment Clause is contrary to long-
established  precedent.  The  Court  repeatedly  has  recog-
nized  that  indirect  coercion  may  raise  serious  establish-
ment  concerns,  and  that  “there  are  heightened  concerns 
with protecting freedom of conscience from subtle coercive 
pressure in the elementary and secondary public schools.” 
Lee, 505 U. S., at 592 (opinion of the Court); see also supra, 
at 15–16.  Tellingly, none of this Court’s major cases involv-
ing school prayer concerned school practices that required