Supreme Court backs praying coach Joseph Kennedy who knelt on ...

Kennedy lost his job after kneeling midfield after games at a public high school.

The ruling could change how courts review religious actions by government employees.

It was the latest Supreme Court decision in which the vote split along ideological lines.

WASHINGTON – In a decision with sweeping implications for the separation of church and state, the Supreme Court on Monday sided with a former high school football coach who lost his job for offering prayers at the 50-yard line after games despite objections from the school district that students felt compelled to take part.

In the latest instance of the nation's highest court backing a religious freedom claim, a majority of the justices said that assistant coach Joseph Kennedy's prayers were a private matter and did not amount to the school district's endorsement of Christianity.

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the 6-3 majority opinion. The court's three liberal justices dissented, asserting that the majority had effectively abandoned a 1971 precedent that had once set the standard for how such cases should be resolved.

"Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse republic – whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head," Gorsuch wrote. "Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observance doubly protected by" the First Amendment.

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The decision came on the heels of a series of rulings in which the court has significantly shifted the interpretation of the Constitution toward a conservative viewpoint. Chief among those was the court's decision on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.

Also last week, in another 6-3 opinion, the court struck down a century-old New York gun law that limited the ability of residents to obtain licenses to carry guns in public. In doing so, the court set a new standard for reviewing Second Amendment cases that could have a profound impact on other gun regulations across the nation.

Though less high profile than those cases, the decision Monday siding with the "praying coach" had implications not only for the practice of religion in schools but in other government contexts as well. In recent weeks, the court has repeatedly sided with religious plaintiffs challenging government policies that were crafted in response to the constitutional prohibition on public entities favoring one religion over another.

"Our Constitution protects the right of every American to engage in private religious expression, including praying in public, without fear of getting fired," said Kelly Shackelford, president of First Liberty, which represented Kennedy. "We are grateful that the Supreme Court recognized what the Constitution and law have always said – Americans are free to live out their faith in public."

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent joined by the court's other two liberal justices, said the decision weakens the barrier between church and state.

"This case is not about the limits on an individual’s ability to engage in private prayer at work," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. "This case is about whether a school district is required to allow one of its employees to incorporate a public, communicative display of the employee’s personal religious beliefs into a school event."

Kennedy was placed on administrative leave in 2015 from his job at Bremerton High School, a public school near Seattle. The San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled last year that Kennedy was acting as a public employee when he offered the prayers and so his actions were not protected by the First Amendment.

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The high court rejected that argument, asserting that Kennedy's prayer's were separate from his official duties as a coach and employee at the school.

"He was not instructing players, discussing strategy, encouraging better on-field performance, or engaged in any other speech the district paid him to produce as a coach," Gorsuch wrote.

For decades, the court's guiding doctrine for deciding cases dealing with the intersection of government and religion was the "Lemon test," named after a 1971 decision in which the court ruled government policies must have a secular purpose, cannot advance or inhibit religion and cannot excessively entangle church and state.

In a 1984 concurring opinion that some lower courts have read as part of the Lemon test, Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor raised the idea that the justices should consider whether a policy amounts to an endorsement or disapproval of religion. But in recent years the court has bypassed Lemon, and Monday's opinion openly dismissed it.

"This court long ago abandoned Lemon and its endorsement test offshoot," Gorsuch wrote. In the dissent, Sotomayor asserted the court had "overruled" Lemon.

"In some ways, the court's ruling ... is unexceptional," said Abner Greene, a professor at Fordham University's School of Law. "But this Court again reaches more broadly than necessary, in its apparent mission to return us to understandings of our Founding Fathers."

Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which represented the school district, said the decision dispenses with the way courts have for decades looked at disputes over religion in the public square.

"It is no coincidence that the erosion of the line between church and state has come alongside devastating losses on so many of the rights we cherish," Laser said. "As that line has blurred, public education, reproductive rights, civil rights and more have come under attack."

School officials said they offered Kennedy the option of praying elsewhere. They said they heard from players' parents who were concerned their children felt compelled by peer pressure to participate. Kennedy countered that the accommodations were impractical because the spaces that officials offered were "insanely far away from my players." And he said he never asked and pressured anyone else to pray with him.

During the April oral arguments in the case, several of the conservative justices indicated they thought the prayers were a private matter and different from a teacher praying in a classroom with students present. The Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that public schools could not offer prayers, even if participation by students is voluntary.

Several of the court's liberal justices raised concerns during arguments this year about whether students might feel pressured to take part not because of any mandate from Kennedy but because it was important to their coach. Gorsuch waved those concerns off, saying there was no evidence that players felt they had to take part in the prayer.

That interpretation, Gorsuch said, would cause other problems in schools.

"Not only could schools fire teachers for praying quietly over their lunch, for wearing a yarmulke to school, or for offering a midday prayer during a break before practice," he wrote. "Under the district’s rule, a school would be required to do so."

The court has looked favorably on religious freedom claims in recent disputes over the First Amendment's establishment clause, which prohibits the government from becoming entangled with religion, and the amendment's free exercise clause, which guarantees the right to practice religion free of government interference.

In 2014, the court upheld a centuries-old tradition of offering prayers to open government meetings, even if those prayers are overwhelmingly Christian. In 2019, the court ruled that a Latin cross on government land outside Washington, D.C., did not have to be moved or altered in the name of church-state separation. In May, the Supreme Court ruled that Boston could not deny a Christian group the ability to raise a flag at City Hall alongside secular organizations that are encouraged to do so to celebrate the city's diversity. The court also struck down a state prohibition in Maine on using public money to attend schools that offer religious instruction.

"I’m still trying to process it," Kennedy told the Kitsap Sun, part of the USA TODAY Network. "I haven’t stopped smiling once and it feels like my whole soul is vibrating. It’s awesome, it hasn’t settled in, but it’s awesome."

Contributing: Kitsap Sun

Supreme Court rules school district cannot prohibit football coach's ...

Washington (CNN) The Supreme Court said Monday that a Washington state school district violated the First Amendment rights of a high school football coach when he lost his job after praying at the 50-yard line after games.

The opinion was 6-3 along conservative-liberal ideological lines.

"The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion.

The court said coach Joe Kennedy's prayers amounted to private speech, protected by the First Amendment, and could not be restricted by the school district.

The decision lowers the bar between church and state in an opinion that will allow more religious expression in public spaces. The court clarified that a government entity does not necessarily violate the Establishment Clause by permitting religious expression in public.

"We are aware of no historically sound understanding of the Establishment Clause that begins to '(make) it necessary for government to be hostile to religion' in this way," Gorsuch wrote.

The Establishment Clause of the Constitution says Congress can "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Kennedy praised the court's ruling in a statement on Monday, saying, "All I've ever wanted was to be back on the field with my guys."

"I thank God for answering our prayers and sustaining my family through this long battle," he said.

The decision continues a trend of a right-leaning court that has sided repeatedly in recent years with religious conservatives. Last week, the court said that Maine could not exclude religious schools from tuition assistance programs in a 6-3 decision divided along ideological lines.

"Today's ruling is the court's second major expansion of constitutional protections for religion in six days," said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

"Last week, the court made it harder for states to decline to fund religious education. Today, the court is making it harder for secular schools to keep religion out of extracurricular activities, like high school football. In the name of defending religious exercise, the court's conservative majority has neutered the First Amendment's other reference to religion -- its prohibition of state sanctioning of it."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the three liberal dissenters, said the court "weakens" the Establishment Clause's "backstop" protecting religious freedom.

"It elevates one individual's interest in personal religious exercise, in the exact time and place of that individual's choosing, over society's interest in protecting the separation between church and state, eroding the protections for religious liberty for all," Sotomayor wrote.

'Audible prayers' on the field

Kennedy began his prayer ritual soon after he was hired in 2008, but the school district grew concerned when Kennedy's short, quiet prayers grew in 2015 as players began joining him on the field all while the crowd was still in the stands.

The school district said it never restricted him from offering silent, private prayers, and offered him an alternate place to pray off the football field after games. Kennedy refused the accommodations and was ultimately placed on paid administrative leave and suspended from the program. After the season, he was given a poor performance evaluation.

He did not seek a new contract, but instead filed suit, arguing that the school district had violated his rights under the First Amendment. Kennedy lost his case at the district court level and before the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals , which held that his prayer amounted to governmental speech that is not protected by the First Amendment.

Before oral arguments in April, Kennedy told CNN in an interview that "every American should be able to have faith in public and not to be worried about being fired over it." Kennedy, who is Christian, said his prayers were meant to fulfill a covenant he had made to praise God after every game, "win or lose."

Lawyers for the school district had argued to the court that Kennedy's prayer practice was not private or personal prayer, but rather a ritual undertaken in full view of students that the school district was justified in restricting.

"No one doubts that public school employees can have quiet prayers by themselves at work even if students can see," Richard B. Katskee, a lawyer for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told the justices.

But, Katskee said, that is not what Kennedy had engaged in. Instead, Katskee argued, Kennedy "insisted on audible prayers at the 50-yard line with students ... (and) announced in the press that those prayers are how he helps these kids be better people."

Katskee argued that even if the court viewed Kennedy's speech as private, the school district had adequate justification to restrict it because officials are permitted to "prevent disruption of and maintain control over school events." Katskee gave the example that a Satanist group had come forward to demand the same access to the football field.

Notre Dame Law School Professor Richard W. Garnett, who wrote a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Kennedy, said on Monday that the high court's ruling will "provide much needed clarity and consistency" to an area of the law that has been "notoriously confused and inconsistent."

"The Establishment Clause is concerned with the entanglement of governmental and religious authority," he said, adding: "It does not require the censorship of private religious expression."

Justices differ on whether players were coerced

In his majority opinion, Gorsuch differentiated the case from past cases, pushing back on the notion that the opinion would lead to more school prayer.

He said the prayers at issue "were not publicly broadcast or recited to a captive audience. Students were not required or expected to participate."

Gorsuch added that students "were not required or expected to participate," rejecting concerns of some of the parents that students could feel "coerced."

And he limited the discussion to three prayers instead of a broader pattern of the coach's conduct.

"Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic -- whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head," Gorsuch wrote.

Sotomayor's dissent, which included photographs of the prayers in question, suggested that she thought the majority was not describing accurately the factual circumstances of the case.

"As the majority tells it, Kennedy, a coach for the District's football program, 'lost his job' for '(praying) quietly while his students were otherwise occupied,'" she wrote. "The record before us, however, tells a different story."

Her dissent also pointedly noted that the school district tried to accommodate the coach by offering him a place to pray, off the field. "Again, the District emphasized that it was happy to accommodate Kennedy's desire to pray on the job in a way that did not interfere with his duties or risk perceptions of endorsement," she said.

She said that it was "unprecedented" for the court to hold that Kennedy's conduct, "taken as a whole, did not raise cognizable" concerns of coercion.

Sotomayor stressed that students could have felt coerced to join in the prayer and pointed to the fact that the court in the past has "recognized that students face immense social pressure."

She said that they look up to their teachers and coaches as role models and "seek their approval" and that players might try to gain a coach's approval to secure a stronger letter of recommendation for college recruiting or more playing time on the field. "The record before the Court bears this out," she wrote.

Already, such concerns have been raised by the National Education Association, the nation's leading labor union for teachers, which said on Monday that the majority opinion would open the door to coercive prayer in schools.

"The Constitution should protect public school students from being coerced into religious activity," NEA president Becky Pringle said in a statement. "The court's decision here does the opposite: it ignores the real-life pressure and coercion that students will feel when school officials stage public religious observances in class or at school events."

This story has been updated with additional details Monday.

Ariane De Vogue
Tierney Sneed
Devan Cole

Supreme Court allowed football Coach Joe Kennedy's Christian ...

Howard Slugh, Gregory Dolin and Ismail Royer

Opinion contributors

Fouad Zaban is head coach of the Fordson High School football team in Dearborn, Michigan. He's a Muslim, like most of his team. If a player offered him a drink of water during Ramadan, the coach would have to decline. If the student asked why, he would explain that he is fasting because of his faith.

Supreme Court wrong about Bremerton coach Kennedy's coercive ...

Frank Lambert

Opinion contributor

As a rookie with the Pittsburgh Steelers, I objected to the pre-game prayers. They were the same each week and represented a negotiation with the almighty.

Although the prayers were led by our defensive captain instead of a coach, I felt considerable pressure to attend. I did not want to offend a powerful veteran, and I wanted to be a good teammate.

Biden, G-7 leaders tackle Ukraine conflict, gas prices and food crisis

Welcome to a new week, OnPolitics readers!

The Supreme Court on Monday sided with a former high school football coach who lost his job for offering prayers at the 50-yard line after games despite objections from the school district in which students felt compelled to take part.

In the latest instance of the nation's highest court backing a religious freedom claim, a majority of the justices said assistant coach Joseph Kennedy's prayers were a private matter and did not amount to the school district's endorsement of Christianity.

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the 6-3 majority opinion. The court's three liberal justices dissented, asserting that the majority had effectively abandoned a 1971 precedent that had once set the standard for how such cases should be resolved.

The decision came on the heels of a series of rulings in which the court has significantly shifted the interpretation of the Constitution toward a conservative viewpoint. Chief among those was the court's decision on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.

It's Amy and Chelsey with today's top stories out of Washington

Biden and global leaders address Ukraine conflict, food crisis at G-7 summit

Group of Seven nations are moving closer to capping the price that countries can pay for Russian oil, a senior U.S. official said.

The official said leaders aim to further restrict Vladimir Putin's cash flow, bring down prices at the gas pump and provide greater stability to energy markets.

Leaders were said to be zeroing in on the way Russian oil is shipped. The U.S. official said G-7 leaders are planning to direct their governments to take urgent steps to design a price cap mechanism for countries that do not participate in the economic alliance.

Leaders' plans to tackle Ukraine crisis: The U.S. also announced on Monday that it would impose sanctions that would make it harder for Russia to replace its military equipment. The official said that the U.S. Treasury Department will introduce blocking sanctions on private military companies operating in Ukraine and Russian officials trying to exert authority in contested areas.

G-7 leaders have also agreed on a new way to fund the Ukrainian war effort, according to the White House. A fact sheet on the new measures says nations will seek to use funds generated by new tariffs on Russia to help Ukraine. As part of the announcement, the U.S. says it will raise tariffs on roughly $2.3 billion of Russian goods.

Why the conversation around food matters: Up to 50 million people in 45 countries are on the brink of famine as the costs of food, fuel and fertilizer have gone up, and grains grown in Ukraine that typically feed millions of people can’t be exported.

Millions of people could starve to death. Countries and regions could become destabilized as food shortages led to riots, protests and increased migration, experts warn. Finding ways to prevent sure dire outcomes will be high on the G-7 agenda as the summit continues for the next few days.

Want this news roundup in your inbox every night? Sign up for OnPolitics newsletter here.

Real quick: stories you'll want to read

Two Americans face death penalty in Russia: The State Department has told the families of war volunteers Alexander John-Robert Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, that “every single avenue of communication is being employed” after their capture by Russian forces on June 9.

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The 5 GOP lawmakers who asked for presidential pardons

Evidence presented during the last hearing of the Jan. 6 committee Thursday revealed that former President Donald Trump and his allies devised several schemes to validate claims of 2020 presidential election fraud. None worked, due to the intervention of Justice Department officials, but at least five Republican lawmakers who supported Trump requested presidential pardons after the attack on the Capitol.

Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Louie Gohmert of Texas all issued statements denying the allegations of the committee or condemning the panel altogether.

Catherine Ross, a law professor at George Washington University and author of “A Right to Lie? Presidents, other liars and the First Amendment,” told USA TODAY that a pardon request suggests an admission to guilt.

“The most likely explanation is that they knew they were guilty of a crime and they didn’t want to be prosecuted and they didn’t want to go jail,” Ross said. “It suggests knowledge of culpability and legal risk.”

The five men have more than just their pardon request in common. All are members of the Freedom Caucus, the far-right coalition in the House that grew out of the Tea Party movement and all voted against certifying Electoral College votes in battleground states Arizona and Pennsylvania. Former Trump lawyer John Eastman suggested in a six-point plan that the states – two of seven swing states Trump lost – should not be counted toward President Joe Biden.

When life begins is a central debate driving the abortion debate. Here's what different religions have to say on the issue. – Amy and Chelsey

Breaking down the Supreme Court's blockbuster, divisive term

Supreme Court takes on school prayer

The Supreme Court backed a religious freedom claim, siding with a high school football coach who lost his job for praying on the field. Twenty-two teens were found dead in a South Africa tavern. And the Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup (then immediately dropped it).

👋 Hey! Laura Davis here, and this is Monday's news, with a side of ugly dogs.

But first: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the ugliest of them all? 🐶 It's Mr. Happy Face! A bunch of hideous dogs got together in California to compete for the title of World's Ugliest Dog. I'm sure they're nice. Here's the one crowned ugliest pup: Meet Mr. Happy Face, a 17-year-old Chinese Crested who fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Check out all the winners here.

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SCOTUS sides with coach over postgame prayer

In a decision with sweeping implications for the separation of church and state, the Supreme Court on Monday sided with a former high school football coach who lost his job for offering prayers at the 50-yard line after games despite objections from the school district because students felt compelled to take part. Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the 6-3 majority opinion that said Joseph Kennedy's prayers were a private matter and did not amount to the school district's endorsement of Christianity. The court's three liberal justices dissented, asserting the majority had effectively abandoned a 1971 precedent that had set the standard for how such cases should be resolved. The ruling could change how courts review religious actions by government employees. Keep reading.

Supreme Court sides with praying football coach. We break it down.

We break it down. Landmark abortion ruling sparks debate about legitimacy of Supreme Court.

Ukraine shopping mall hit by Russian missile strike

Russia intensified its campaign of terror in Ukraine on Monday with a missile strike on a crowded shopping mall in Kremenchuk. At least 11 people were dead, said regional Gov. Dmytro Lunin. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the number of possible victims was "unimaginable," adding that the target presented "no threat to the Russian army." It was one of at least 60 missiles Russia launched into Ukraine over the weekend, a barrage that killed civilians and destroyed and damaged apartment buildings. The latest updates from Ukraine.

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What everyone's talking about

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G-7 leaders meet in Germany

President Joe Biden is in Germany for the Group of Seven summit, an annual economic meeting between leaders from the U.S., France, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan. The G-7 leaders spent Monday morning discussing ways to help Ukraine beat back a Russian offensive. They were addressed virtually by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose remarks were expected to jump-start conversations about additional artillery shipments. G-7 leaders are also discussing a price cap on Russian oil. Catch up: Everything that's happened at the G-7 summit.

What is the G-7? And what is the Group of 20, or G-20? Answers here.

What happened in South Africa?

A celebration for end-of-school exams turned deadly – but officials aren't sure why. The bodies of 22 teenagers were discovered at a nightclub in South Africa. Reports said they had no visible signs of injury. Most of the victims, ages 13-17, were discovered lying on tables, slumped over chairs and sprawled on the floor of the club, police said. Their cause of death remained under investigation Monday, South African police officials said. Forensic samples were being sent to a toxicology laboratory, police said, not ruling out the possibility the victims were poisoned or ingested a toxin. Keep reading.

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That'll buff out 😉

It took the Colorado Avalanche 21 years to bring the Stanley Cup back, and about five minutes for them to make their mark on it. With the team gathered on the ice Sunday night in the aftermath of their Cup-clinching Game 6 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning, right wing Nicolas Aube-Kubel skated toward the scrum for a team photo with the Cup in hand, only to lose his footing and slam the trophy on the ice as he fell, denting the base. "I don’t even know if they had it five minutes and there’s a dent in the bottom already. Right in the middle of the team photo," said Phil Pritchard, the Hockey Hall of Fame’s keeper of the cup. The Avalanche prevented the Lightning from completing a Stanley Cup three-peat. It was the third Stanley Cup title in the franchise's history and the first since 2001. But don't worry – they'll get the cup repaired. Read more.

Avalanche end Lightning's reign, win Stanley Cup for first time since 2001.

win Stanley Cup for first time since 2001. Nazem Kadri told his critics to 'kiss my [expletive]' after Avalanche won the Stanley Cup.

🌤 What's the weather up to in your neck of the woods? Check your local forecast here.

A break from the news

The force of the Supreme Court's right turn has shaken the country ...

(CNN) The Supreme Court reached into every corner of American life, reordering intimate family choices, breaching the separation of church and state, and diminishing the steps government can take to prevent gun violence or protect the environment.

The upheaval of the past several weeks, especially as the court outright ended a half-century of women's privacy rights, is unmatched in modern times. The speed and sweep by which the right-wing majority acted reflects, as one liberal dissenter wrote, a "restless and newly constituted Court."

And it is not finished.

The conservative supermajority -- anchored by three relatively young appointees of former President Donald Trump -- is positioned to continue its impact with disputes next session over the Voting Rights Act, affirmative action and religious objections to LGBTQ protections.

Yet it will be the epic 2021-22 session that stands out over time. The case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization , reversing Roe v. Wade, will likely be remembered as one of the most far-reaching rulings in Supreme Court history. The 5-4 decision marked the first-ever complete reversal of a constitutional right.

The justices also enlarged the Second Amendment, favoring gun owners, and redefined the balance between the First Amendment's prohibition against government "establishment of religion" and its "free exercise." That will allow more prayer in public settings and require more government money for religious education.

The new landscape was made possible because of the three Trump appointees -- Neil Gorsuch, age 54, Brett Kavanaugh, 57, and Amy Coney Barrett, 50. They separated themselves from prior Republican-named justices who had adhered to precedent and "the promise of constancy," as Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter called it in the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed Roe.

The drive to the right was not wholly unexpected, even though its force has shaken the country.

When liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020 and Trump quickly replaced her with Barrett, the new six-justice right-wing bloc appeared positioned to roll back decades of individual rights and government power.

It was just a question of how quickly it would happen and whether the conservative but incrementalist Chief Justice John Roberts would be able to slow the juggernaut.

Twenty months later, it is plain the majority was in a rush. The right wing did not need Roberts' vote for a majority, and on many conservative agenda items, such as religion, race and regulatory power, he was fully with them. (Roberts wrote alone in Dobbs -- with a middle ground that dissatisfied both sides).

Aggressive conservatives

In the most momentous cases, including abortion rights, the justices aggressively decided more than the case demanded. When the justices agreed to take up a Mississippi law that banned abortions at 15 weeks of pregnancy, it said it would decide only whether that ban was unconstitutional based on Roe and Casey protections for a woman's abortion choice before fetal viability, at about 23 weeks.

Kavanaugh, who succeeded Kennedy in 2018, signed on to the Dobbs opinion denigrating Casey's reasoning and likening Roe to the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld racial segregation, even as he professed "deep and unyielding respect" for O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter.

The Dobbs opinion suggested a new era of abortion debate beyond the domain of the justices.

"After today's decision, the nine Members of this Court will no longer decide the basic legality of pre-viability abortion for all 330 million Americans," Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring statement as he joined the majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, which was also signed by the other Trump appointees and Justice Clarence Thomas. "That issue will be resolved by the people and their representatives in the democratic process in the States or Congress."

It is likely, however, with states responding to the Dobbs decision with new anti-abortion laws, that related controversies will soon return to the high court.

The justices reached out in the Environmental Protection Agency case, too, as the Obama-era Clean Power Plan had been repealed and no Biden administration plan was yet in place. Thursday's decision will limit the Biden effort to control emissions in coal and other industries to counteract climate change.

More broadly, the ruling will affect Washington's ability to protect the country's public health and safety.

Writing for the majority, Roberts allowed that limiting carbon dioxide emissions and forcing a transition from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a "sensible" way to address the climate change crisis. "But it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme in" prior statute, he said.

Contending that the court itself was asserting inordinate control on climate policy, dissenting Justice Elena Kagan said, "I cannot think of many things more frightening."

Earlier this year, the six-justice conservative wing rejected the Biden administration's effort to stop the spread of Covid-19 with a vaccination rule. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration had directed employers with 100 or more workers to require vaccines or weekly Covid-19 testing.

The court ruled in January that OSHA had exceeded its statutory role in workplace safety. "Although COVID-19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces, it is not an occupational hazard in most," the justices said in their unsigned opinion.

The same six justices favored conservative Christians in Maine and ruled that if a state subsidizes private education, it must include religious institutions. They also sided with a Washington state high school football coach who prayed at midfield after games, and in doing so jettisoned a legal approach that warned against government "endorsement" of religion.

As the majority emphasized respect for religious expression in the case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School, dissenters said the decision disserved schools and students, along with the country's "longstanding commitment to the separation of church and state."

Liberal wing can do little but dissent

New Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson , the nation's first African American woman on the bench in the court's 233-year history, succeeded retiring Stephen Breyer on Thursday and will be in place for the new session.

At age 51, compared with the 83-year-old Breyer, Jackson will bring a new shot of youth along with her historic status. The 6-3 conservative-liberal balance, however, will not change.

The wing that Jackson joins is likely to remain on the losing side, particularly in the highly charged voting-rights and culture-war controversies on the agenda for the 2022-23 session, which begins in October.

When the three liberals, including Breyer, dissented in the Dobbs abortion case, they recalled a lament of Breyer's from 2007 as he dissented from a decision striking down school reintegration plans: "It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much."

"So few" are now -- as a supermajority -- more aptly "so many."

The swift pace of such great change has been staggering. Dissenters tried, in vain, to hold on to precedent that went back half a century in the abortion rights and religious liberties controversies.

In the EPA case, they clung to a recent precedent, a 2007 case in which the high court recognized the EPA's authority to regulate carbon dioxide and to address environmental crises.

"But that Court," wrote Kagan, "was not this Court."

Correction: An earlier version of this story misattributed a quote in the Dobbs concurring opinion. It was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Joan Biskupic
Cnn Legal Analyst
Supreme Court Biographer

From abortion rights to Jan. 6 hearings, recapping a historic June

June was a packed month in American politics.

From the Supreme Court to Congress and beyond, major news happened often.

Across the legislature, Supreme Court and elections, June was a packed month for politics. Bombshell testimony from the Jan. 6 committee looked to connect former President Trump with the attack on the Capitol. The Supreme Court issued major decisions on abortion, gun rights and religious freedom. Millions went to the polls in primaries for midterm elections that will determine control of the House and Senate.

Abortion, guns: Supreme Court ends historic term with hard right turn

Several observers said the Supreme Court term that ended Thursday was as chaotic as it was historic.

The court decided high-profile cases with the conservative justices aligned against the liberals.

That included decisions expanding access to guns and ending the constitutional right to abortion.

WASHINGTON – Back when the Supreme Court justices took their seats last fall for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered their majestic courtroom, the hot controversy was whether too many cases were being decided without oral argument.

Nine months later, after a bombshell term that brought about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the striking down of at least one and potentially many other gun laws and a rethinking of the separation between church and state, the court has thrust itself into America's culture wars in a way experts say the nation has not witnessed in decades.