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KENNEDY v. BREMERTON SCHOOL DIST. 

Syllabus 

activities.    See,  e.g.,  Widmar  v.  Vincent,  454  U. S.  263,  269,  n. 6.    A 
plaintiff  must  demonstrate  an  infringement  of  his  rights  under  the 
Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses.  If the plaintiff carries his or 
her burden, the defendant must show that its actions were nonetheless 
justified and appropriately tailored.  Pp. 11–30. 

(1) Mr. Kennedy discharged his burden under the Free Exercise 
Clause.    The  Court’s  precedents  permit  a  plaintiff  to  demonstrate  a 
free exercise violation multiple ways, including by showing that a gov-
ernment entity has burdened his sincere religious practice pursuant to 
a  policy  that  is  not  “neutral”  or  “generally  applicable.”    Employment 
Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872, 879–
881.  Failing either the neutrality or general applicability test is suffi-
cient  to  trigger  strict  scrutiny,  under  which  the  government  must 
demonstrate its course was justified by a compelling state interest and 
was narrowly tailored in pursuit of that interest.  See, e.g., Church of 
Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 546.   
   Here, no one questions that Mr. Kennedy seeks to engage in a sin-
cerely  motivated  religious  exercise  involving  giving  “thanks  through 
prayer” briefly “on the playing field” at the conclusion of each game he 
coaches.  App. 168, 171.  The contested exercise here does not involve 
leading prayers with the team; the District disciplined Mr. Kennedy 
only for his decision to persist in praying quietly without his students 
after three games in October 2015.  In forbidding Mr. Kennedy’s brief 
prayer, the District’s challenged policies were neither neutral nor gen-
erally applicable.  By its own admission, the District sought to restrict 
Mr. Kennedy’s actions at least in part because of their religious char-
acter.  Prohibiting a religious practice was thus the District’s unques-
tioned “object.”  The District explained that it could not allow an on-
duty employee to engage in religious conduct even though it allowed 
other on-duty employees to engage in personal secular conduct.  The 
District’s  performance  evaluation  after  the  2015  football  season  also 
advised against rehiring Mr. Kennedy on the ground that he failed to 
supervise student-athletes after games, but any sort of postgame su-
pervisory  requirement  was  not  applied  in  an  evenhanded  way.   
Pp. 12–14.    The  District  thus  conceded  that  its  policies  were  neither 
neutral nor generally applicable.   

(2) Mr.  Kennedy  also  discharged  his  burden  under  the  Free 
Speech Clause.  The First Amendment’s protections extend to “teach-
ers and students,” neither of whom “shed their constitutional rights to 
freedom  of  speech  or  expression  at  the  schoolhouse  gate.”    Tinker  v. 
Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 506.  
But teachers and coaches are also government employees paid in part 
to speak on the government’s behalf and to convey its intended mes-