Joseph Kennedy, a former high school football coach in Bremerton, Wash., had a constitutional right to pray on the field after his team’s games, the justices ruled.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a high school football coach had a constitutional right to pray at the 50-yard line after his team’s games.

The case concerned Joseph Kennedy, an assistant coach at a public high school in Bremerton, Wash., near Seattle.

Over the last 60 years, the Supreme Court has rejected prayer in public schools, at least when it was officially required or part of a formal ceremony like a high school graduation.

As recently as 2000, the court ruled that organized prayers led by students at high school football games violated the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion.

Kennedy’s lawyers said those school prayer precedents were not relevant because they involved government speech.

The school district, its lawyers responded, was entitled to require Mr.

“Regardless of whether Kennedy’s very public speech was official, the district could regulate it,” the school district’s Supreme Court brief said.

The school district noted that a judge on the U.S.

After further proceedings, the Ninth Circuit again ruled for the school board

Bremerton School District, No