What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

SCOTUS, Now with KBJ

Status
Not open for further replies.
psych said:
Looks like the author of the letter repeatedly states he violated their code of conduct and the law by doing it while a) people were present and viewed him perform the act while b) he was supposed to be watching students safely leave the premises, as being an assistant coach/guardian meant safety of the kids came first before his freedom of religion. Once they all left the premises, he was free to pray, as his duties to protect the safety of his students was discharged. Sounds like he knew that, and he violated it anyways.
Click to expand...
Amen (no pun intended). The school district was spot on.

The whacko wing of SCOTUS? Not so much.
 
psych said:
Looks like the author of the letter repeatedly states he violated their code of conduct and the law by doing it while a) people were present and viewed him perform the act while b) he was supposed to be watching students safely leave the premises, as being an assistant coach/guardian meant safety of the kids came first before his freedom of religion. Once they all left the premises, he was free to pray, as his duties to protect the safety of his students was discharged. Sounds like he knew that, and he violated it anyways.
Click to expand...

What happened was this, and you can see that in the letter.

The school district knew they couldn't fire him for privately praying on student grounds. In fact, they write that in the letter. They also knew that they had no evidence of coercion or anything else that they could use to make their "establishment" clause case. So they come up with this "failure to perform your job" argument in the letter, that he violated with his "fleeting" prayer (his words, not mine). As shows up elsewhere in the record, everyone knew that was a bogus claim by the district. The kids were off singing a song. There was nothing he was expected to do, and the evidence was that the school officials "on duty" in these situations were always off doing their own personal thing, so that whole argument was a sham.

It's pretty obvious from the record the school got set up, that much is clear. The coach and his lawyers knew that the school had no legitimate basis upon which to take action, so he clearly went out and offered the prayer, by himself, at the center of the field, with the whole world watching, and the school got baited into firing him. If they had done nothing, and refused to take the bait, the thing would have died down, everyone would have lost interest, and they could have simply elected not to renew his contract the next time it came up.
 
By the way, did you guys know that Kirk Cousins filed an amicus brief in that case? Seriously. When I get time, I'm going to have to go and read what ol' Kirk had to say about this.
 
SJHovey said:
What happened was this, and you can see that in the letter.

The school district knew they couldn't fire him for privately praying on student grounds. In fact, they write that in the letter. They also knew that they had no evidence of coercion or anything else that they could use to make their "establishment" clause case. So they come up with this "failure to perform your job" argument in the letter, that he violated with his "fleeting" prayer (his words, not mine). As shows up elsewhere in the record, everyone knew that was a bogus claim by the district. The kids were off singing a song. There was nothing he was expected to do, and the evidence was that the school officials "on duty" in these situations were always off doing their own personal thing, so that whole argument was a sham.

It's pretty obvious from the record the school got set up, that much is clear. The coach and his lawyers knew that the school had no legitimate basis upon which to take action, so he clearly went out and offered the prayer, by himself, at the center of the field, with the whole world watching, and the school got baited into firing him. If they had done nothing, and refused to take the bait, the thing would have died down, everyone would have lost interest, and they could have simply elected not to renew his contract the next time it came up.
Click to expand...

Sounds a lot like your opinion, as some of what you say in there conflicts with what I’ve read about the case. I will ask you again, are you arguing the school should have waited for a more liberal SCOTUS to rule in their favor?
 
psych said:
Sounds a lot like your opinion, as some of what you say in there conflicts with what I’ve read about the case. I will ask you again, are you arguing the school should have waited for a more liberal SCOTUS to rule in their favor?
Click to expand...

No, what I'm saying is this.

From the school's standpoint, their goal should be to avoid litigation. Schools are short of money the way it is. Litigating cases with employees, all the way up the the Supreme Court, should be an expense they are looking to avoid. Furthermore, now that the SCOTUS has ruled against them, they probably face a bunch of costs and back wages from the coach.

The school claims they were worried about being sued by someone claiming they were violating the "establishment clause" if they let the coach proceed. However, as I pointed out earlier, in my opinion that was only slightly likely to happen. No one was complaining about this, and it apparently went on for about seven years. It was only when someone from a neighboring town pointed it out that the school took action. However, there was no question the coach was going to sue, that became apparent very early on. There were other ways of handling this, such as just quietly not continuing the coaches contract that next time it came up.

Second, it is clear from the record that the coach was spoiling for a legal battle that could be litigated all the way to the SCOTUS, if necessary. He had some conservative outfit out of Texas representing him.

Bad facts can make bad law, and the school had bad facts in this case. There was no evidence he was making anyone pray, or that anyone even felt compelled to participate. If you are someone who is evaluating whether you want this case to go to any court, even the SCOTUS, you want good facts on your side, not bad facts. Groups actively seeking a separation of church and state should have definitely been in the ear of the school telling them this is not a good factual case to litigate, certainly not before this version of the SCOTUS.
 
SJHovey said:
No, what I'm saying is this.

From the school's standpoint, their goal should be to avoid litigation. Schools are short of money the way it is. Litigating cases with employees, all the way up the the Supreme Court, should be an expense they are looking to avoid. Furthermore, now that the SCOTUS has ruled against them, they probably face a bunch of costs and back wages from the coach.

The school claims they were worried about being sued by someone claiming they were violating the "establishment clause" if they let the coach proceed. However, as I pointed out earlier, in my opinion that was only slightly likely to happen. No one was complaining about this, and it apparently went on for about seven years. It was only when someone from a neighboring town pointed it out that the school took action. However, there was no question the coach was going to sue, that became apparent very early on. There were other ways of handling this, such as just quietly not continuing the coaches contract that next time it came up.

Second, it is clear from the record that the coach was spoiling for a legal battle that could be litigated all the way to the SCOTUS, if necessary. He had some conservative outfit out of Texas representing him.

Bad facts can make bad law, and the school had bad facts in this case. There was no evidence he was making anyone pray, or that anyone even felt compelled to participate. If you are someone who is evaluating whether you want this case to go to any court, even the SCOTUS, you want good facts on your side, not bad facts. Groups actively seeking a separation of church and state should have definitely been in the ear of the school telling them this is not a good factual case to litigate, certainly not before this version of the SCOTUS.
Click to expand...

So, yes, that is what you’re saying. They shouldn’t have litigated now because a) expensive, duh, coupled with b) “bad” facts because they were interpreted by the majority who think like Alito, not Sotomayor, therefore c) wrong Supreme Court to spend so much time litigating. If c) was the right Supreme Court, I think a) and b) would have been moot, no?
 
The Right is only acting like we always knew they would act when they got control of the Court. None of this is a surprise.

This has always been the Right:

“When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.”

The only way to fight them is to retake power, and the only way to retake power is to oppose them strongly so that voters will support us. The Democrats' mewling, wincing, apologetic centrism of the last fifty years has destroyed America. We need a muscular Left that will fight these monsters.
 
Last edited:
Putting aside one's opinion on the ruling, "I want to be an ostentatious asshole about my superstitious belief in an invisible white, bearded sky dude and his 2000 year-old book of cannibalistic, warmongering, patriarchal, xenophobic fairytales, despite Matthew 6:5-6 explicitly saying not to be an ostentatious asshole about it" is totally on-brand for the Christofascist GOP.
 
aparch said:
Coming next in the "states rights": if it isn't PIV missionary sex, it ain't legal...

https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/sta...80580752363520

Lots of uptight straight white "pro life" males are gonna hate no longer getting blowies...
Click to expand...

Selective enforcement.

The purpose of these laws is to persecute LGBTQ. White Christians will still be able to do anything they want.

Republicans are creating their Utopia: an apartheid state where the ruling "race" is... Republicans. This is what the Right would always do, given the chance. They are constitutionally anti-democratic and they neurobiologically lack empathy.
 
1st up today is a criminal case involving a Native American - 5-4 by Kavanaugh; Gorsuch dissents along with the liberals. Another one where replacing Ginsburg with Barrett made the difference.

Edit: Sorry, this was a non-NA who committed a crime on tribal land against a native. Court holds state and feds have concurrent jurisdiction. Gorsuch and the liberals would've said Feds have exclusive jurisdiction.
 
2nd and final one today is a case involving service members' right to return to their other jobs after being deployed. Texas had argued sovereign immunity as a defense. 5-4 by Breyer (Roberts and Kavanaugh joining the liberals). By joining the union, States implicitly waived sovereign immunity with respect to anything dealing with the common national defense.

That's all for today.

The 2 left are both big ones. WVa v. EPA and Texas v. Biden. Both will be released tomorrow (Court announced tomorrow is the final day of the term).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top