Supreme Court revisits prayer in school in football coach case

The Supreme Court on Monday will hear arguments in a high-profile case involving a high school football coach who was reprimanded for postgame prayers on the football field’s 50-yard line.  

The dispute has drawn dozens of briefs from interest groups on both sides, with religious liberty advocates urging the 6-3 conservative majority court to advance their cause, while backers of the school have asked the justices to lay down a marker on church-state separation.  

One unusual twist that makes the case’s stakes difficult to gauge is that coach Joseph Kennedy and the Seattle-area school district have offered sharply contrasting accounts of what transpired. Depending on which facts the court finds most persuasive, the case could be dispatched quietly, or it could mark a watershed in First Amendment law.