Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-418_i425.pdf
Page Number: 18.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

That  Mr.  Kennedy  has  discharged  his  burdens  is  effec-
tively undisputed.  No one questions that he seeks to engage
in a sincerely motivated religious exercise.  The exercise in 
question  involves,  as  Mr.  Kennedy  has  put  it,  giving
“thanks through prayer” briefly and by himself “on the play-
ing field” at the conclusion of each game he coaches.  App.
168, 171.  Mr. Kennedy has indicated repeatedly that he is
willing  to  “wai[t]  until  the  game  is  over  and  the  players 
have left the field” to “wal[k] to mid-field to say [his] short,
private,  personal  prayer.”  Id.,  at  69;  see  also  id.,  at  280, 
282.  The contested exercise before us does not involve lead-
ing prayers with the team or before any other captive audi-
ence.  Mr. Kennedy’s “religious beliefs do not require [him] 
to lead any prayer . . . involving students.”  Id., at 170.  At 
the  District’s  request,  he  voluntarily  discontinued  the 
school  tradition  of  locker-room  prayers  and  his  postgame
religious  talks  to  students.  The  District  disciplined  him 
only  for  his  decision  to  persist  in  praying  quietly  without
his players after three games in October 2015.  See Parts I– 
B and I–C, supra. 

Nor  does  anyone  question  that,  in  forbidding  Mr.  Ken-
nedy’s brief prayer, the District failed to act pursuant to a
neutral and generally applicable rule.  A government policy
will not qualify as neutral if it is “specifically directed at . . . 
religious practice.”  Smith, 494 U. S., at 878.  A policy can
fail this test if it “discriminate[s] on its face,” or if a religious 
exercise is otherwise its “object.”  Lukumi, 508 U. S., at 533; 
see also Smith, 494 U. S., at 878.  A government policy will
fail the general applicability requirement if it “prohibits re-

—————— 
Civil Rights Comm’n, 584 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 18).  To resolve 
today’s case, however, we have no need to consult that test.  Likewise, 
while the test we do apply today has been the subject of some criticism, 
see, e.g., Fulton v. Philadelphia, 593 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 5), 
we have no need to engage with that debate today because no party has 
asked us to do so.