Help me understand this Gorsuch ruling about Jesus on the 50 yard line.

[FBaggins]

22. I think I can add some context

Much of this is bluster. The Supreme Court generally doesn't make determinations of fact at all. The "prayed quietly" comes directly out of the 9th circuit record that they were reviewing. Gorsuch didn't make it up.

But your reading is still probably correct. The ruling only applies (directly anyway) to "a guy praying quietly while his students are otherwise occupied". Having said that - the court seems to be making clear that you would have to move pretty far from that description before they would have a problem with the behavior. It's unlikely that an occurrence where others decide to join him and pray at the same time will be seen as crossing the line.

One key element that many are missing (apparently including the dissent) is that the case really only applies to the three events in October 2015 that resulted in his firing. The dissent points out a much longer record that included arguably clearer cases that could result in his firing, but SCOTUS doesn't do that. They don't pull up other incidents and say "well... he could have been fired for that so that's good enough".

From the dissent -

Under the Court’s analysis, presumably this would be a different case if the District had cited Kennedy’s repeated disruptions of school programming and violations of school policy regarding public access to the field as grounds for suspending him. As the District did not articulate those grounds, the Court assesses only the District’s Establishment Clause concerns. It errs by assessing them divorced from the context and history of Kennedy’s prayer practice.

I'd respond that... yes... as you catch in the OP, this could have been a different case. The error (and in the dissent as well) is the implication that the court should have just ignored the fact that the school district screwed up. It sounds like they could have built a much stronger case for firing him... but didn't.

A liberal court might have vacated the ruling and sent it all the way back to the initial court for additional proceedings that might add some of that relevant information, but I'm not sure that it could be fixed (because the district can't change what they've said about why they suspended him)... but at the very least, they could have ruled in his favor on much narrower grounds that did not overturn existing precedent and made explicit that some of the other behaviors in the record could legitimately have resulted in termination.