Advisory Opinions - Supreme Court Hears Football Coach Prayer Case

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

It's a glorious podcast today as David and Sarah talk about a praying football coach, Miranda rights, and the hottest Supreme Court justices. They answer a key constitutional question: how undead is the Lemon Test?   Show Notes: -SCOTUSblog: “Can you sue the police for Miranda violations?” -Kennedy v. Bremerton School District -PBS: “Chief Justice Roberts’ emotional tribute to retiring Justice Breyer” -Hottest Supreme Court justices? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Advisory Opinions Podcast. I'm David French with Sarah Isger. And we've got lots of stuff to talk about today. And none of it related to the Supreme Court opinions that actually came out. Which are not all that exciting, Sarah. Fair enough. I mean, look, I've got cough drops lined up here. I'm ready to go because we had the last week of argument at the Supreme Court for this term, which is already very exciting itself. We're not even going to get through all those arguments. We're really going to focus on the Coach Kennedy case, but we'll have a few others thrown in

there. But we're going to save some of the arguments, frankly, for Monday and definitely the opinions because we're going to get more and more opinions now that we're after argument. It's only uphill from here, David. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It is going to be lit, as the kids say, here on Advisory Opinions. And let's start with today. Today's going to be pretty interesting talking about the Coach Kennedy prayer case. We're also going to talk about a Miranda oral argument, an emergency docket denial in the Thomas Jefferson case, school case that we've been talking about for a while. And then are we really going to talk about the hottest SCOTUS justices? Oh, we are. We definitely are.

Okay. All right. Should we start with Miranda and get out of the way, or should we just go to the main event? Ah, we'll do some Miranda. Okay. Let's do it. So here's what's interesting about this question. So the guy isn't Mirandized, and normally when you don't get your Miranda warning, and let's just, you know, set aside there was some controversy over that, but for our purposes, not Mirandized. It's the exclusionary rule, right?

Now, Miranda's not in the Constitution, and neither is the exclusionary rule, and when you're in law school, this will be like a whole big part of your criminal law class of like, where did Miranda come from, and is it constitutional, and is the exclusionary rule the only remedy that there is? So the

exclusionary rule is, if you don't Mirandize someone, then anything you get post when you should have been Mirandized gets excluded from your criminal trial. So, you know, they arrest you. They don't give you any Miranda warning. And then you blurt out, I did it. But that's not coming in a trial. Now, that is like all fun and games in, you know, roughly 1970 as they work all that out.

But there's actually tons of interesting Miranda law since then. You know, what's actually custodial? Sure, if they clink the handcuffs on you and you hear the dun-dun, fine, you've been arrested. But lots of cases over when Miranda warnings have to be given, what is a custodial situation? This isn't that case, David. This case is, okay, is Miranda actually constitutional in the sense that if your Miranda rights are violated, can you get 1983 money damages? So, for instance, David, you and I have talked about 1983 a lot. If I violate excessive force, policemen, and I just beat you over the head a few times,

you can sue under 1983 and recover damages because I violated your constitutional right against excessive force. Ditto pretty much any other constitutional right. But is Miranda a constitutional right or is it a constitutional prophylactic? And that's what this case is about. This guy is trying to sue and recover damages under 1983. And the court really actually has never been totally clear on whether Miranda is a constitutional right. So what'd you think of the case, David? It's a fascinating case. And I, at first I was thinking, wait a minute, constitutional rule, constitutional right, uh, distinction without a difference, but that's not exactly correct. It is, distinction without a difference, but that's

not exactly correct. It is a distinction with a difference. So just to try to flesh it out a little bit more, if you actually do coerce the confession, if you actually do coerce the confession, you've violated the constitutional rights. But then that's established. Section 1983 would apply. You could sue. You could get damages theoretically if there wasn't qualified immunity. But is the failure to give the Miranda warning by itself a violation of your constitutional rights? That's the question. And it's much closer and more interesting than I thought it would be, Sarah, as I was reading through the case. Much more interesting than I thought it would be. And that comparison to the exclusionary rule, when you're suing for an unreasonable search and seizure, it's the unreasonable search and seizure that is the foundation of your money damages claim, not necessarily if the exclusionary rule is applied or not applied.

And so that's what was interesting to me about the case. And I ended it and I was thinking, huh, I'm still of the view that the failure to give Miranda rights is part of it. I guess I'm persuaded that the failure to give the Miranda rights all by itself, the failure to provide the Miranda warning all by itself, I'm pretty persuaded that that's not a violation of your civil rights. What are your thoughts? Totally. It's not that close a call for me on that front. We've always said that Miranda was a prophylactic. It's trying to prevent the violation of your constitutional rights.

But Miranda in and of itself, there's nothing in the Constitution that says you must be warned about your constitutional rights. It's a good prophylactic. I'm for it. It's provided the United States so many courtroom procedurals, it's hard to think anything other than good things about it. But it is not a violation of your rights. But there were just some interesting things that came up at trial. So first of all, just to give some background, this is a nurse who was accused of sexually assaulting a sedated patient. This is a nurse who was accused of sexually assaulting a sedated patient.

He's taken into the on-call room, and an hour later, he is arrested with a handwritten confession. He is acquitted at trial. They introduce the confession. It's not excluded, despite not having his Miranda rights. And so now that he's been acquitted, remember in that other case, David, we've talked about what does it mean to actually, do you need to be acquitted or just not convicted? Anyway, it doesn't matter here because he's acquitted, acquitted. And basically everyone's now agreeing, well, that his confession never should have been used at trial. Regardless, it should have been excluded because he wasn't given his Miranda warnings. And so one of the

defenses from the police officer is really interesting to me, David. He says, as the police officer, that he could presume that if he had violated Miranda, that the prosecutor or the trial judge would exclude the statement. Therefore, even if he violated his constitutional rights, the police officer wasn't the cause, the immediate cause of his injury. The injury being the inclusion of that confession at trial, that that was actually either the prosecutor or the trial judge, but not the police officer. I mean, that's a pretty fun proximate cause argument, David. Yeah, that is interesting. That is interesting. But I'm expecting, again, with all the caveats for moral argument, I'm expecting that Miranda will be held to be prophylactic and the failure to provide a Miranda warning is not going to be by itself a violation of your constitutional rights actionable. up a lot more clearly earlier. But I guess if you're thinking through this conceptually, the real, in almost every single case where a defendant isn't Mirandized or a suspect isn't

Mirandized, there's the coerced confession, that the coerced confession is fully actionable all by itself. But what what happened here is they did have a trial over this and they were just the jury was denied a jury instruction and the plaintiff was very specific jury instruction, which seems to be, you know, there's just practical real-world realities as to why this isn't something that's come up an awful lot, because there's going to be some sort of ruling on the coerced confession as a result of the loss of no Miranda warnings, and so you end up with a distinction without a difference in real life. But here, it just was this narrow procedural thread of the needle that got us to the Supreme Court. So one of the big things you talk about

in that Krim Law Day where you do Miranda and the exclusionary rule is the idea that the exclusionary rule is actually pretty unique and weird. Like the exclusionary rule means that we let guilty people go, knowing that they're guilty because they didn't get a Miranda warning, instead of, for instance, allowing the unlawfully obtained evidence at trial because we want to put guilty people away,

but coming up with some other remedy to discourage the behavior and give that person who's now sitting in jail some remedy for the violation that isn't then actually hurting all of society by having a guilty person out free. And what is often mentioned, and there's plenty of law review articles about this, is monetary damages. The idea that if you have any of those rights violated, we shouldn't exclude the evidence at trial. We should instead give you monetary damages if your rights are violated, the same as we do for everything else. If your First Amendment rights are violated, obviously there isn't an exclusionary rule that would help you because

you're not being criminally tried. So 1983, we give you monetary damages potentially. being criminally tried. So 1983, we give you monetary damages potentially. This is interesting because you don't get to start from scratch. Obviously, you're not going to have the justices say, let's get rid of the exclusionary rule and instead read in 1983 damages to a Miranda violation. But I bet you get a little bit of it in a concurrence. This feels like a more snitchy thing to me. Yeah, interesting. Interesting. Well, that'll be fun to see, and we're going to get the outcome of this case pretty soon. Anything argued recently, you're going to get a ruling on it here pretty darn quickly. Let's move on to the main event, Sarah. The entree. Yeah, the praying football coach. So this case is really interesting on a number of levels. The fact pattern behind the

case is interesting. The legal environment is interesting. And the legal tactics, including the tactics that argument are interesting. So let's just sort of unpack this. You have a coach, Coach Kennedy at Bremerton School District, who is, you know, he, I believe if you're going back and you look at some of what he says about himself and his life, he saw this show, or this movie called, I think, Remember the Giants or something like this. It's a Christian movie. Remember the Titans. No, that's a different movie. Remember the Titans is a movie. I don't know Remember the Giants. Remember the Titans is a movie. No, was it Remember the Titans? Anyway, shoot, I don't have his little bio up in front of me. But he saw a movie about football players that I'm pretty sure was a Christian movie. Not, not the Denzel. Now remember that. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, readers, I mean,

listeners fact check this for us. Um, so he sees a movie he's inspired once, uh, eventually becomes a coach, not, um, hadn't really necessarily set out to be a football coach, becomes a coach. And for a while, he actually, according to evidence in the record, he actually led prayers as a football coach, maybe at midfield after the game. He would sometimes deliver some remarks. The school admonished him against doing that. Why? Why would you admonish him against doing that? Well, there's a lot of case law for a lot of years that public school officials, their establishment clause concerns if public school officials, whether it's a coach or a teacher or a principal, lead prayer while they're on the job. a principal lead prayer while they're on the job. Now, a public school teacher could lead prayer in like a Young Life meeting off campus after school hours and Sunday school and, you know, when they're in their private capacity. But when they're in their official capacity speaking as a

coach, can't lead prayer. And by leading prayer in front of all of those folks, that was an establishment clause concern. So they told him to stop doing it. They said, you can go pray after a game elsewhere. Just don't go on the field. Don't lead prayer. So he basically says, well, you know, I'm still going to do it. I'm not going to formally and officially lead prayer, but I'm going to go by myself onto the field to pray after the game. First time he does it, apparently a whole bunch of people sort of charge the field to join him in prayer. There was allegations like a band member was knocked down or something, but it was a big melee, apparently. And he prays. People are all around him. Apparently does it again, but he's more private. In other words, it's not as big of a deal. And the school district says, no, Nodog can't do it.

says, no, no dog can't do it. And so here we are, here we are in the Supreme court of the United States with a question of multiple questions, really. Um, one is if a public school, uh, teacher is, or a coach is praying with the intention of praying by himself, if, if, you know, other people might join in, but if with the intention of praying by himself in the field after a game, is that his speech or is that speech as part of his official duties or is that his own private speech? Does the school have an establishment clause interest in preventing it, even if it is his own private speech? I think there was no real argument over whether or not if it is his own private speech. I think there was no real argument over whether or not if it's his official speech that the school could prevent it on

establishment clause grounds. But if it's his private speech, does the school have an establishment clause interest in preventing him from speaking? So those are kind of the issues. And what was one of my favorite, and when I say favorite, least favorite cases was mentioned an awful lot, which is Garcetti v. Sabalas. And Garcetti is this case that we've talked about that essentially says, if you are a public employee speaking in your official capacity, that speech does not enjoy First Amendment protection unless it's teaching and scholarship in higher education. That's been sort of how the lower courts have worked out some of the dicta in the case. But a public school teacher, K through 12, speaking in their official capacity doesn't

enjoy First Amendment protection. And so a big part of this case is the question of, is a coach who is out there by himself at the 50-yard line after a game praying, is he there and is that speaking in his official capacity or not? So how broadly does Garcetti extend? Because Garcetti doesn't extend to everything that happens when you're on school grounds. If you're a teacher and you pray in front of your meal at the cafeteria, that's not speaking in your official capacity. That's clearly your own speech and it's going to have protection. So that's the facts set up. Very interesting. And then I want to get your thoughts. Did I leave anything out, Sarah, that you thought was interesting about the facts

before we get to some of the tactics and argument here? I thought you did a better recitation of the facts than either side was willing to concede an oral argument. There were two different cases being talked about an oral argument. You know, one is sort of the pure legal distillation of the facts you just gave, which you said at the end, right? Is he speaking in his personal capacity or is he speaking in a work capacity? Is this his religious freedom? Is it First Amendment right? Those like really interesting legal questions. Although frankly, they wouldn't be that interesting because i think it's pretty clear that while the district could have a policy that coaches after the game for instance are fully on duty and cannot text their loved ones can't go talk to fans or whatever after the game they need

to be with players in the locker room and they are responsible for all of those players, that's not what happened here. He's allowed to do all sorts of things. Go talk to his wife, get a drink. So his work duties were, he was on duty for two more hours, but it was clear from the contacts that he could take personal time in that. And if that were the end of this case, David, he would, to me, very clearly win. I understand we'd still have some discussion over the 50 yard line bit of it maybe but probably not much uh as it came up at oral argument you know the idea that we base one's establishment clause or free exercise clause

rights on whether they are the center of attention that's a little like the if you were offended you if someone was offended we don't let you say the thing like we don't base it on whether other people are paying attention to you something you don't control uh again as came up an oral argument you know when tim tebow scores a touchdown he's the center of attention but that's not why he's praying um okay but then the other side uh their version of the facts is, you've got to be kidding me. This guy wants to violate the law. He wants to be fired because he wants to challenge the very idea that you can't coerce your students into praying Christian prayers because he thinks that that's his calling is to evangelize in a public school.

And there's plenty of facts to support that, by the way. And, you know, there's his statements that he thinks that this is how he's going to, you know, make good men out of these football players, is praying with them. And so, therefore, it puts his prayer at the 50-yard line in a totally different sight. When they told him, over and over again again they accommodated him, the school district. Absolutely. You can pray on your own time. You can pray even after the game. You just can't do it with students. And he wrote back and was like, I'll do it with whoever I want. I'll be praying at the 50-yard line.

They all will know that I will be praying at the 50-yard line. I will hold a press conference saying that I will be praying at the 50-yard line. And if they want to come join me, they're allowed to do so. And I'm not going to stop them. Okay. So that's then, it's two separate cases. There's the not-so-interesting-but-interesting-enough legal case if the school district had acted sort of unreasonably and then

there's the this guy super wants to be fired and wants the santa fe case overturned santa fe being a 2000 case out of texas where the school voted on who would give the invocation before football games over the loudspeaker so a student speaker elected by the majority to give an invocation of some kind. It didn't have to be religious in nature, but it generally was. Because shockingly, this school district kept voting for Christian prayer speakers because it was a majority vote.

And the Supreme Court held that that was an establishment clause problem. And a whole bunch of people don't like that opinion. They've wanted to challenge it. Coach Kennedy, clearly one of those people. So David, for me, I think Coach Kennedy is a bad teacher. I think he's a bad public employee. And I wouldn't want him being my kid's football coach because his motivation is coercion. However, the legal rule that's going to come out of this case, unless they go out of their way to make it only apply to Coach Kennedy, which they're not going to do, the legal rule to come out of this case, Coach Kennedy has to win, in my view. So this is one of those weird cases, David, where I think the bad guy wins. Yeah, and you can tell there is bad blood here. And oh my goodness.

So I want to read the district's brief, the first paragraph of the introduction, which kind of says it all. And it actually leaked into the oral argument as well. So this says, according to the petitioner, the petitioner in this case is the coach, this case presents two questions concerning whether a school district may prevent its employees from ever offering a solitary, silent, or quiet prayer while at work. Petitioner calls the Court of Appeals decision on these questions a remarkable, stunning, staggering, radical, indefensible, egregiously and exceptionally wrong, triple threat, and outlier that obliterated and botched three separate lines of First Amendment jurisprudence

in one fell swoop. But no amount of purple prose can change the petitioner's conduct. What's never, as the petition describes it, the school district never imposed the restrictions that the petition asserts, and the Court of Appeals never addressed the grand questions of legal doctrine that the petition insists, much less did it repudiate all existing First Amendment jurisprudence. The questions posed in this petition are merely interesting ones, but in this case, they're merely hypothetical, or perhaps interesting ones, but in this case, they're merely hypothetical. And then it begins,

or perhaps interesting ones, but in this case, they're merely hypothetical. And then it begins, here is what actually happened, colon. Okay. So David, I have a couple of questions for you on this. Well, first, let me go through what the outcomes, the possible outcomes are, because then I'm going to tee you up for one of the outcomes. Outcome one, Coach Kennedy wins. You can give your prayer at the 50-yard line. And you know what? If students come join you or don't, there's just not much anyone can do about that. He's having a private prayer. It's his private speech and his religious exercise. It doesn't matter if he's the center of attention. It doesn't matter even if he doesn't shun the attention. Number two, the attention um number two coach kennedy loses uh he's on school time he's still on duty and uh this is uh a problem for the school i think that's the the zero likely outcome frankly

right then there's number three and the reason that it's important is because what the district court knows about this case and the facts and what the district court thinks about the plaintiff in this case, Coach Kennedy. Yeah. Which is that the Supreme Court sends it back because, and this is what I, I basically want you to wax poetic on lemon, on the lemon test. So they send it back because the school screwed this up several times, actually. It's not their fault. They're a school board. But in continuing to tell Coach Kennedy that they were going to accommodate him, but he needed to stop doing this, they kept saying that the problem was establishment.

Because they sort of knew about the Santa Fe case, presumably. They had some lawyer who was kind of familiar with this. And they're like, establishment clause, that's in the Constitution. Yeah. And that's the lemon test that I want to get your read on. in tests that I want to get your read on. But many of the justices seem to think it's not whether this is an establishment clause problem. It's just clearly not. It's whether it's a coercion problem, which is what I've been saying, right? That he wants to coerce these students, and that is a problem for the students. That's violating their rights. But the school never said that. He was put on administrative

leave because, according to the school, of their fear of an establishment clause problem. So if they turn out to be wrong about that, at least Paul Clement arguing for Coach Kennedy says, look, they gave their reasons. If that's an unlawful reason, this is an employment discrimination case. He just wins. It doesn't matter if they could have had a lawful reason. But you had Justice Gorsuch at the end saying, what happens if we think the lemon test that the lower court used is wrong and that the establishment clause stuff is just the wrong lens and we think it's actually a coercion case? And the lawyer for the other side, who's actually counsel at the separation of church and state, who, again, I think the school has made a series of mistakes here,

and I think that was one of them as well. He said, send it back down to the lower court because they want to go back to the lower court. They can win at the lower court. So they're happy with that outcome. So, David, those are your three outcomes. Talk to us about the Lemon test and why lemon already is dead. Is lemon zombie precedent? Yeah. Oh man. Limby, Limby. That's a combination that gives the forecast. It's a combination of lemon and zombie. It's a limby. No lemon is, is lemon is when the zombie has been lurching around the countryside for so long, it's just rotted away.

Justice Scalia referred to it as a ghoul in a late-night horror movie. Well, that was when Lemon still had at least enough flesh to be scary. Now Lemon is just laying without much form, moaning on the countryside with no real force or effect. And so what was interesting to me, Sarah, was, yeah, why is the school relying on Lemon, right? And one of the reasons why— And just to be—let me just read the Lemon test real quick. First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose. Second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion. Finally, it must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.

Woof. A lot of woof. Yeah. Which is why, so the interesting thing about this is, to me, was much more the Garcetti conversation. Because we know what to do with employee speech when it does not fall within Garcetti, when it is not considered to be official speech. And we even know kind of what to do with teacher speech when it doesn't fall within that official speech world. And here's what I thought, here's what I, you know, if I was arguing for the school, in addition to sort of this coercion notion, here's what I would have really circled and put an exclamation, I would have circled, underlined, boldface, put an exclamation point around, was even if Garcetti doesn't apply, and my fallback is, okay, I've got to go with that

this is his own speech. Tinker, which says very famously that teachers and students, it's not just students, but teachers and students don't abandon their rights at the schoolhouse gate, doesn't allow a teacher to, or a student, to create a substantial disruption or material interference with school activities, and that under the facts of this case, the substantial disruption wasn't just something that was an abstract fear. It was a present reality that, you know, when you had some, when you had evidence of somebody being knocked down, you know, in the, in sort of the rush to get to, to get to the coach, you, that this was in, this was not that, was not, that again, if you're circling the wagons around your version of the facts, that this was not, nothing about this was intended to be solitary

or quiet or unobtrusive at all. It was intended to be public and to create a spectacle and to create exactly the kind of reaction that it created. And his speech or not his speech, the school has an interest in preventing a substantial disruption or material interference with school activities. If only you had been the school's lawyer. They didn't cite that. And they didn't even discipline him for that game. Right.

So that's why I feel like in this case, Coach Kennedy is winning. And the legal principles, under the relevant legal principles, he should win. There's no real argument that the justices were buying that this was official school speech, that this was plainly official school speech. So if this is not official school speech, if they're going to sort of lose the argument that whatever he's doing while he's quote-unquote on the clock is going to be official school speech, if they're going to concede that there's some things that are and some things that aren't, this is clearly on the not line. And they are not arguing, you know, the substantial material disruption or material

interference isn't sort of their fallback sort of tinker argument, then they're left with this lemon argument and lemon is dead. Lemon is, you know, barely, I mean, it's even maybe beyond undead to just dead, dead. And I don't, I don't see how they win and I don't see how they win. And I don't see why they should win, to be honest, under that set of legal arguments. So I think that the justices will use this opportunity, particularly Kavanaugh kept raising this oral argument, they're going to kill Lemon. Like Lemon won't be a zombie anymore. Lemon will have a stake put through the heart and it will be the end of lemon because while lemon has been dead at the supreme court for 20 years as justice cavanaugh said uh it hasn't been dead at the lower courts and it certainly hasn't been dead for school

districts trying to figure out how to navigate this difficult minefield without a whole lot of guidance frankly um from the court. So I think that it's pretty clear Lemon will be actually dead after this. Fine. But one quick thing, one quick thing, you mixed your undead metaphors. You put a stake through the heart of a zombie. It's not doing jack or squat. You have to destroy the zombie's brain. It's a stake through the heart of a vampire. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. Just could be handy in the future. the zombie's brain it's a stake through the heart of a vampire oh yeah okay yeah good to know um all right just could be handy in the future with what about a what about the ghoul as justice scalia how do you kill a ghoul you know i'm not so sure about ghoul killing methodology

um you know i think anything that would i when in doubt, just sever the head. Okay. Okay. Yeah. A ghoul in a late night horror movie that stalks our establishment clause jurisprudence. Yeah, so Lemon will die. Great. That's a good outcome here.

But, David, I, you know, you and I, when we first talked about this case, first of all, I didn't want them to take it because I thought the facts were bad and that they were going to make law based on bad facts, which can lead to some bad stuff down the road. You are very much in the Coach Kennedy camp. I know you don't like him in particular. And by the way, we're not talking about Coach Kennedy, the man, the person. We don't know him. Right, right. His actions, as have been reported in the briefs. So I know you don't like what he did

in the sort of martyrdom aspect here. Right. But I want Coach Kennedy to lose, I think. Because I think the coercion thing, and Justice Kagan talked about this a lot, is real. Now, I thought Justice Barrett had a good pushback, and I'm struggling with it.

So, right, Justice Kagan's point is, these are 14-year-old boys, you know, 14, 16 minors, a lot of them, and this is the person determining whether they're on varsity, how much playing time they get, and he's said publicly that he thinks this is how you become a good player, is by praying with him. You don't have to, but he's going to be on the 50-yard line after the game. Do what you want. Could there be anything more coercive than that? And I agree. And as someone who grew up in a school right before Santa Fe was decided. That happened all the time. We had prayers before orchestra concerts. And if you wanted to get off the bus and not pray, that was fine. You can do that. But we're going to all be on the bus praying, and I decide who's first chair. I mean,

that's coercive. But Justice Barrett had good pushback, which I guess it's good in some sense, but I'm not sure I like it. Okay, but coaches can lead young life at their homes, Tuesday night fellowship or whatever, and it's the same thing. I'm like, yes. And that was also egregious because my, uh, world history teacher was a coach. He was the one who did Young Life. And if you went to Young Life, you didn't have to turn in your homework the next day. But if you did, you know, if you didn't go to Young Life, that's totally fine. It's not going to affect your grade at all. We'll accept that homework. So I just also refused to do my homework. That went over about as well as you can imagine. But some of the other justices chimed in and was like, okay, but that's always the case. Teachers always just have this coercive power. You think

that the math teacher wants everyone to join math club and you'll get a better grade if you join math club because obviously the math teacher is passionate about math club. That is true. But math club isn't your religion, your parents' religion. It is different. And there's a reason we treat it differently. And so I think that the coercive aspect of this, the school said, do it on the sideline, go to the locker room. We've got this other room over here you can go to. And he said, absolutely not, because that defeats the purpose. The purpose is for the students to be able to join him so that he can have this coercive power, David.

So I think you're right that Coach Kennedy will win. I think they'll kill the Levin test and just say that this is personal speech, personal prayer, and that it cannot be based on the subjective decisions of other people. But I think this is bad for schools that have majority religions, like mine did, and clearly like this school district does when people, you know, he gives this press conference. And the reason that that band member was knocked down, that people were injured, it's funny because they didn't actually express this in the

oral argument. It made it sound like the disruption was people protesting or something else. No, no, it was a stampede to join him. That's what a majority this is in this community. Then the law needs to protect those students who are not in the majority religion. So a couple of things. One, you know, in your situation where you're talking about the teacher leads young life and then doesn't require students to turn in homework if they were attending young life, that's where there is an actual, in his official capacity, policy that is dictated by his, you know, by religious preference and religious practice. And to me, that's, that's a bright line. And I think when you're talking, this is why I went

back to Tinker, Sarah. This is why I went back to Tinker because Tinker has the answer. Tinker has the answer. And the answer is no, you don't, you're not going to create a, and this is what ticks me off about Garcetti because we had a perfectly fine rule in existence anyway. But if Garcetti is not going to apply, and there's no hope, it seems to me that there's no hope on the part of the school district to say that this is his official capacity speech, that the facts didn't support it, the circumstances don't support it, the reasonable person viewing everything in context, it wouldn't support it. There's just no real argument, I think, and now watch me be shocked by the actual opinion, but, you know, there's no real argument that this is official capacity speech. So it's private capacity speech. What do we do with speech protected by the First Amendment on school

grounds? We know what to do with it. We know what to do with it. We know to permit it unless there's a substantial or material disruption. And this is where I think when you're talking coercion test, you're lasering in on the religious aspect of this. When I'm talking substantial and material disruption, what I'm lasering in on is the sort of the viewpoint slash content neutral effect of the speech on the school community and the campus. And that's where, you know, I think it's entirely appropriate for a school to say, where, you know, I think it's entirely appropriate for a school to say, look, you know, we're going to protect your private speech, but what you're doing is whipping up a dangerous situation. Doesn't matter if you're praying. It doesn't matter if you're kneeling in protest. You know,

like let's say at the 50-yard line, you go and you look at the flag and you kneel in protest in front of the flag. that would be just as protected as praying. If it's creating a situation where people are, where there's a stampede, that's, you know, that's your material disruption and that's a no-go. But that's not, you know, in my view, that's where we have the frame to decide this, where we don't have to dive in and say, well, religious speech is particularly problematic in a way that ideological speech isn't. So what if your math teacher is a Bernie bro, you know, and the seniors are all, you know, they're new voters. And it's very well known that this math teacher is organizing for Bernie.

You know, politics is a very powerful, has the power. A lot of people in a lot of people's lives, politics has more power over their hearts than religion. So I don't like this sort of idea that singles out religion from other forms of expression and says, that is more coercive, say, than ideology or the worldview of a teacher that isn't specifically located in religion. Let's go back to Tinker. Tinker gives us our answers and deal with it on that basis. And that's viewpoint neutral. yes go back go back to the fundamentals sarah tinker so a i think the other response to mine is then you need to prove the

coercion and then the coercion is the problem you don't have a prophylactic when it comes to someone else's speech i just think it's really hard to prove the coercion, but I take that point as someone who cares a lot about speech and thinks speech should be paramount. Maybe that's the answer. You just have to be able to at least, maybe the burden should be relatively low on proving coercion, but it can't just be the fear of coercion. It has to be some evidence that all of the starting players

happen to be of the majority religion or something, you know, something, even if it's circumstantial, you know, this was a question from, to move to the argument itself and some interesting moments, David, I'm curious what your thoughts were, but right off the bat, when the attorney for the school comes up, Justice Alito, you're talking about this in relation to the free speech clause, but the petitioner also has a free exercise claim. So if on that set of facts, the school district were to say, you can go out to the center of the field and you can kneel down to protest the Russian invasion of Ukraine or make a statement about climate change or about racial justice or any other issue that is of interest to you, but you can't pray. Would that be consistent with the

free exercise clause? I mean, the most, surely that question was the most anticipated one. You know, the second I heard it, I was like, yup, that's the question. And this is where I thought the advocate for the school, again and again, A, I'm not sure he's just a particularly, he's clearly, his credentials are stellar. He's obviously a very smart attorney, but oral advocacy may not be his skill set. He had a lot of difficulty getting answers out, stumbling over words, repeating himself, just not a crisp oral argument, which makes it not persuasive. If your listener is nervous for you, and whether you're going to get through that sentence or find the word you're looking for,

it's not very persuasive. It distracts from the persuasiveness. But two, as the head of separation of church and state, that organization, he had an ideological stake in this that I thought didn't serve the school particularly well. And I think he suffered, perhaps, from being someone who hasn't engaged a lot with the other side's sincerely held beliefs on some of these issues. So it was difficult for him, I think, at points to even be able to have that persuasive conversation. Look, I mean, set aside my 3-3-3 court for a second. There are six justices on this court who at least don't agree with you from an ideological standpoint. And it points, he was audibly sighing when one of those six justices would ask a question of him, cutting off justices.

Do you need their vote? What are you doing? It was bizarre to me to go into this saying, well, I only want people who super agree with me on the ideology set aside the case. So anyway, getting back to his answer, he basically said the school district gets to script their event, meaning, yeah, they can let someone kneel against the, you know, to protest the national anthem and prevent him from praying. I get that that fits within your ideology, but it isn't helping your school district. And it's not helping you win this case. So just from a strategic standpoint, you have Paul Clement go in and honestly, unlike everyone else who I talk about on this podcast, I don't know Paul Clement. I've

met him. I don't know him. I have no, you know, Paul, in fact, he's a competitor of my husband, if anything. I thought Paul gave maybe the best oral argument of his career. Because you go in with the client who nobody likes and the facts that aren't very good, and you just wouldn't have known any of that listening to Paul Clement give this argument. It was calm. He was confident. It was persuasive. Oh, the oh the law oh i'll concede that but even so i mean it was um brilliantly delivered sotomayor gives i needed to time it david it was so long and there were 27 different points he needed to respond to he He says, well, Justice Sotomayor, there's a lot in there, but let me try to get to this question. And then three justices jump in to interrupt,

meaning he never got to her. It had to be seven minutes, David. I mean, it was long of just Justice Sotomayor giving her own oral argument about how this was government speech because he was on duty and the school couldn't ban him from texting his wife. And it's like, well, yes, they could. They could say you can't text during any times you're on duty. In fact, I'm surprised more schools don't say you can't text during any times you're on duty. But just from a interaction of the justices, after that seven minutes, we're just going to say it was seven, Kagan jumped in, the chief jumped in, I couldn't tell who else jumped in.

Wow. Normally justices let their colleagues' questions get answered out of respect for their questions. But if you just jump in and ask another question, it means that person's question isn't going to get answered. Woof. Yeah. Yeah. That was interesting. That was interesting. And now I read, I read the transcript and I didn't listen. I didn't listen to the argument, but it sounds like what you're saying tonally that the opposition's disdain for the coach was leaking through the oral argument. Oh, it wasn't leaking. It was actually the main point of his argument. The main point of his

argument is this is a bad guy, which again, I'm your core audience for this because I agree. But that doesn't help you win the case here, as it turns out, because Paul has this argument on the law. You need to win on the law, not because this guy sucks. Suck though he may. And the other thing is, if your argument is this guy is a bad guy, Lemon is irrelevant to that. Yep, totally. Lemon has nothing to do with that. The character of the coach is completely meaningless in the lemon test. But it's very meaningful if your argument is this guy's a bad guy and therefore these following facts are extremely relevant to coercion or disruption, etc. That's a different kind of argument. But if the argument is this guy's a bad guy, and then the response is, well, on what basis do we rule against him? Because there is no

bad people lose constitutional rights doctrine, right? And in fact, there's a long and proud history in constitutional law of folks that you wouldn't necessarily want to eat dinner with winning some pretty striking First Amendment cases. We wouldn't need the First Amendment for the people we all agree with and the people we all like and the people we all want to protect in society. Yeah, exactly. So what's your rule? And it's not bad guys get the lemon test. That's not the rule. And again, I think this is a really smart lawyer who, I think separation of church and state is an important organization, so I don't want to belittle anything that happened.

But this might, we'll see how it comes out, this might be one of the few cases where the oral argument actually did make a difference. And it's certainly one of those cases, David, a little similar, but I think more serious than the angry cheerleader. The angry cheerleader case, frankly, was just a fun oral argument and a fun case for everyone.

There were no serious consequences. The cheerleader's great, the school's great, everyone's fine, TikTok's cool, whatever. Here, there's a lot more serious stuff at stake. But where the justices brought their own life experience to the oral argument, once again, Justice Kavanaugh bringing his coaching experience. And I very much felt like Justice Kagan brought her own experience that, again, is probably quite similar to mine in that regard, that the other justices, you know, may not have had.

For instance, if you went to a private religious school, there was never a question about whether your teachers could coerce you into praying or attending church, your parents have signed you up for that coercion. Versus if you are a minority religion at a public school, it's just a very different experience than someone who's in the majority. And I don't blame the people in the majority for not thinking about that experience or spending much time on it. But I'm happy that there are now people on the court or spending much time on it. But I'm happy that there are now people on the court who aren't Catholic. Not everyone can be Catholic.

It's just, it just has to be the rule. But David, there's an important question I want to get to. And we've gotten this in various contexts, but I want to use it in this case. Why is atheism not treated as a religion? As in when the school picks secularism as the default, that in and of itself at this point has a religion-esque quality to it.

And when it comes to establishment clause, why is that not just as bad? Well, atheism is a religion under the establishment clause in many contexts. Okay, so if you're talking about as a school advocating atheism as a point of view, let's just distinguish between this. Let's distinguish between an affirmative endorsement of atheism, as in you should not believe in God, versus this school doesn't endorse any particular faith at all and also doesn't endorse atheism. So in other words,

that's where a lot of these arguments have run aground on the idea that people, going back to the 1980s and early 1990s, there were some textbook challenges, for example, and challenges to school curriculum on the basis of the Establishment Clause, sort of saying what they were putting into place was a religion called secular humanism. And essentially the counter is, well, wait a minute. If we, if we can't advocate being a Southern Baptist, you know, you're, you're not advocating the Baptist faith. You're not advocating Jewish faith, Muslim faith. You're not telling people to be an atheist either. You're not telling people to be agnostic either. What you're adopting is a position of neutrality. Neutrality is not a religion. So the argument, the counter-argument isn't that you're advocating atheism. What you're

saying is that the school is neutral with respect to religious points of view, and neutrality isn't inculcating a religion. But atheism very much could be an establishment clause violation in certain contexts. But agnosticism, again, I think that's secularism, this idea that we don't talk about religion is neutral. I don't know. Do you agree with that? I don't know that I do. But again, so we have to parse. Don't talk about religion. Yes, you can. You can talk about religion. So you can teach about religion. You can have a world civilizations class where you teach about religion. You can talk in civics about the demographics and beliefs of Americans. So that's in a situation where you can absolutely talk about religion. What if you're talking about transgenderism,

something that only fits into secular humanism, atheism, and agnosticism? Let's just say for my current purposes, and I'm picking transgenderism because it's a hot topic, but so the school says, we're going to teach about transgenderism, which is acceptable in these religions, but not in these religions. How is that not putting a thumb on the scale? How is that still neutral? If you're teaching about transgenderism from the standpoint of what are the competing scientific and religious arguments over it,

of what are the competing scientific and religious arguments over it, you can absolutely do that. Not competing. There's only one. That's the fight going on in these schools. This is the Florida sexual gender identity bill. It's that teachers are teaching that there is such a thing as transgenderism, that you can pick your gender identity and that that is a positive good. How is that not violating the establishment clause? Set aside free speech. Yeah, but that's not specific to any religion. So you can, a school district could bring out atheists, Muslims, Jews, Christians

who completely agree with the school's perspective on transgenderism. And the opposition could pull out atheists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, who completely disagree with the school's position on transgenderism. So the issue there isn't so much, okay, well, there is one Christian view of transgenderism. Well, you as a Christian might think that's the case. In other words, you might think small-o-Orthodox Christianity means that this transgenderism teaching is wrong. And if you're saying that it's right, then you are establishing a religion contrary to me. But that's not how this works because the

state doesn't adjudicate between the PCA, my denomination, which has a very small orthodox view on human sexuality and gender identity and all of that stuff, and the PCUSA, which are both Presbyterian churches, Presbyterian Church of America, Presbyterian Church USA, the court doesn't say, you know what, the PCUSA is, that's actually not Christian. And they're shoving an atheistic secular worldview. And the PCUSA is, that's actually not Christian. And they're shoving an atheistic, secular worldview. And the PCUSA is like, no, that's not the case. So this is where, you know, a lot of these arguments that you've seen people make that essentially say, well, if the school is pushing a particular kind of ideology, that it is therefore violating the establishment clause. But the ideology might contradict their branch of Christianity, but other branches of Christianity

have strong disagreement upon that point. And so therefore, you know, one of the things that, on that point. And so therefore, you know, one of the things that, you know, I think as far as particularly on extremely contentious issues like gender identity, et cetera, we've had this conversation about pronoun cases, for example, that this idea that teachers can only spout a particular approved state line here as opposed to, for example, teaching about what the controversy is, as opposed to overtaking teachers' points of view and saying, here is the approved point of view on this issue, is inherently in many ways destabilizing, even if it's not an establishment of religion. even if it's not an establishment of religion. So this is one of the reasons, Sarah, why the teaching and scholarship argument in Garcetti, I think, is very relevant. That one of the purposes of education in the United States of America is to, quote the Supreme Court, to prepare students for membership, citizenship in a

pluralistic, often contentious society. And so what we do when we take over teacher speech entirely is we are doing the opposite of that. When we strip teachers of all constitutional rights and turn them into teach bot 9,000, then what you're doing is you're not teaching students about pluralism. You're teaching students a particular school-approved orthodoxy. Now, that might not violate the establishment clause because it can't be tied to any specific religion, but it is not preparing us for pluralism, us for pluralism, whereas a school career of exposure to different teachers with different points of view and different ways of approaching subjects, that prepares us for pluralism. Well, to wrap on Coach Kennedy, I hope that the Supreme Court finds a way to understand that a school needs to be able to get rid of a coach that is acting the way that Coach Kennedy was acting. I hope that that also doesn't infringe

on the free speech rights and religious rights of public employees, because obviously, as you've already said, David, it's not actually a close case of whether someone can pray before their meal as a teacher, a silent prayer, reading the Bible before class starts. That's all fine. There is something different. The school district tried and tried and tried to accommodate here, and he didn't want the accommodation. So you have to ask why. And the question here actually is an employment discrimination question. Must a school district continue to employ a coach who has done the things that Coach Kennedy has done? Now, when you and I talk about this case, we talk about it as the lemon test in religion and speech,

and that's what I love. That's like the nerding out fun. But at the end of the day, does a school district have to keep a Coach Kennedy coaching minors? And I hope that that isn't lost in this case when they decide it. And we'll take a quick break to hear from our sponsor today, Aura. Ready to win Mother's Day and cement your reputation as the best gift giver in the family?

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selling frame. That's auraframes.com. Use code advisory at checkout to save. Terms and conditions apply. All right, David, one more substantive thing. The Supreme Court rejected the Thomas Jefferson High School appeal. So remember the district court finds that there's unconstitutional discrimination against Asian American students

in the new admissions policy. The circuit court in a very collegial, but diametrically opposed majority concurrence and dissent says, no, it's neutral policy, neutral admissions policy, therefore it can't discriminate. And for a stay, we're going to use the new admissions policy this year because it's too hard to use the old admissions policy. The tests don't exist. And basically the school district's irreparable harm trumps the students' irreparable harm. They go to the Supreme Court just on the stay question on which admissions policy will get used this fall. And the Supreme Court says we're staying out of it. But it's a 3-3-3 court, David, with the three justices dissenting, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito. Any surprise? No surprise whatsoever. I don't think they

wanted to deal with this before they dealt with the Harvard case. So yeah, this doesn't end the case. This doesn't end the case. This is a stay request. The litigation's ongoing, and the litigation will be shaped by the decision in the Harvard case. To Professor Vladek's point, though, I did want something written by the majority of what were the factors, how did you weigh them? Because in this case, I thought the dissent in the Fourth Circuit was very persuasive that if you're weighing two irreparable harms, and I acknowledge the government's interest in pursuing a lawful policy is irreparable, an admissions policy they can't not, you know, go back, economic damages won't fix that, or the constitutional, unconstitutional discrimination

against specific students, even one specific student, and how are you going to weigh those? The dissent's like, well, clearly, unconstitutional discrimination trumps any other irreparable harm. It is the top irreparable harm. Now, there's then likelihood of success on the merits. I don't believe, I really don't believe that the Supreme Court just thinks that the school wins this case because they're neutral. I don't believe they agree with the Fourth Circuit majority, at least a super close call. But remember, there's that like 1B part of likelihood of success on the merits, which is likelihood that we will take the case for certiorari, that we will hear the case. I'm concerned about that, that in fact, they may just decide the Harvard case and GVR it, meaning they'll grant, vacate, and remand back for further proceedings in light of the Harvard

decision. But the Harvard case isn't about neutral admissions policy. So I don't know how they GVR it. They might. So David, I guess I want to know what factors were you considering and rejecting this? And I feel the frustration, I think, that Professor Vladek has felt on things that come out in ways he disagrees. He's like, well, that should have gotten a stay, and they don't say anything. I feel that way now of like, it's fine. I accept losing, but you do need to tell me under what metric you decided I lost. losing, but you do need to tell me under what metric you decided I lost. I agree with you completely, totally. So, and I also agree with you that this is different from the Harvard case, because the Harvard case, pretty clear, wasn't race neutral, pretty clear. Now, of course,

it wasn't intended to be. Now, in the TJ case, it wasn't intended to be. Now, in the TJ case, the argument is, well, this looks neutral, but not intended to be. So Harvard will have some relevance to it for sure. But I agree with you completely. Two housekeeping things before we get to the 10 hottest SCOTUS justices. We've got a few more fun things. It's not just hot SCOTUS justices. We've got a few more fun things. It's not just hot SCOTUS justices, but yes, please. One, as everyone who is listening to this, who's familiar to this podcast, who's familiar

with Christian movies, was screaming, no doubt screaming at their phone. Okay. What was it? Remember the Giants. It was facing the Giants. I was conflating Remember was it? Remember the Giants. It was facing the Giants. I was conflating remember the Titans and facing the Giants. So it was facing the Giants.

And then the other one, I just had, I'm not going to say, I'm not going to dunk on you, maybe like a layup with attitude. I know I've spoken to Paul Clement. I've spoken to him, David. Oh, well, come on. Well, then you know him. I'm saying we're not like friends. We don't like

go out drinking. I don't have some story about how that one time we played beer pong. Well, I was going to say I know him, but I just really know him by having a few conversations. But I don't have any bias for or against Paul Clement. That was my point. But I don't have any bias for or against Paul Clement. That was my point. Well, here I thought I had actually interacted with somebody and knew somebody that you had never interacted with and didn't know at all. And so I was in and that's just false. You do know Paul Clement.

So just put that in the I've noticed some commenters are like, Sarah knows everybody. So put that in, in the legal world, it's, it is not six degrees of Kevin Bacon. It is two degrees of Sarah Isger. All right. All right. Well, speaking of people that I know, do you remember we had Neil Weir on the podcast, president of Equally American, to talk about the insular cases and the case about the Puerto Rican SSI benefits that we spoke about? So he listened to the pod and he has thoughts. And I told him that if he put them in a concise form,

I would read them. So this is from Neil, former guest of the pod, friend the pod sarah always happy to hear people like you talking about the insular cases most folks aren't even aware of these decisions that justify denying residents of puerto rico and other u.s territories equal rights by calling them alien races and savages but you said a few times that everyone knows the insular cases quote quote, aren't good law. While I wish that were true, it shockingly still isn't. As Gorsuch and Sotomayor recently highlighted, the insular cases stubbornly remain good law. While we're working to change that,

this week we filed a cert petition in Fidimanu v. United States, that's the case that we talked about with him as well, calling on the Supreme Court to finally overrule the insular cases. In Fidimanu, the 10th Circuit and Biden Justice Department have both forcefully relied on the insular cases to deny recognition of birthright citizenship

in U.S. territories. The insular cases are a hot topic these days and included some law review articles and articles as well. So yeah, they filed their cert petition. And I don't know. I mean, I think they have two votes. They certainly have Gorsuch and Sotomayor. And Neil is right. When I said that everyone knows the insular cases are bad law, they are the ability to treat the territories differently than the united states is still good law i meant

the insular cases uh tonally i suppose are not good law but you know what i i take his point that's a difference without a distinction if you care about your rights so thank you neil for that um next up david it was justice briar's last oral argument on the supreme court and um chief justice roberts just gave a very short very very kind little statement at the end and i'll put in the video into the show notes but he didn't like maybe choke up he choked up multiple times in delivering like four sentences. I'd never really heard anything like it. And now, as many of you may know, Justice Breyer has announced his retirement from the court, effective when we rise for the summer recess. That means that the oral argument we have just concluded is the last the court will hear with Justice Breyer on the

bench. For 28 years, this has been his arena for remarks profound and moving, questions challenging and insightful, and hypotheticals downright silly. This sitting alone has brought us radioactive muskrats and john the tiger man for now we leave the courtroom with deep appreciation for the privilege of sharing this bench with him it was a very kind send-off for justice breyer and i just i will miss justice breyer's questions i loved his hypotheticals not just because they were fun, weird, quirky, and because his voice has such a, like, you always know it's Justice Breyer. You can't possibly confuse him with any other justice.

But, you know, spiders, muskrats, four-foot-long cigars smoked through hookahs. He has been so unique, so one of a kind, really challenges your thinking. For this podcast, at least, I think I speak for both of us when I say he will be sorely missed at oral argument. Yeah. Oh, he will be. No question. And that was touching. You know what it reminded me of? Do you remember when Mitch McConnell was saying goodbye to Joe Biden at the end of the Obama administration? And McConnell got incredibly choked up.

I don't know if he'd have been choked up if he knew Biden was going to be back in four more years. But yeah, you know, there is a lot of, there are real relationships here. And I think it's good for the public to see that every now and then. And I thought that was very touching and really appreciated it. And last, someone on Twitter has provided the, quote, definitive list of the top 10 hottest Supreme Court justices of all time, parentheses, because I don't feel like writing my property exam. First of all, property was my

favorite class in law school. So don't give short shrift to that property exam. Good things can come from that. But we appreciate that you did because now we can all pass judgment on your top 10 list. So first of all, Louis Brandeis coming in at number 10, I think he's better looking than that. Just look at the hair. He has a certain Lincoln-esque leadership statue. Fine. John McKinley, no, way too foppish. Don't like the red nose. Not my type. He had a not Supreme Court justice, but future Supreme Court justice at number eight. a not Supreme Court justice, but future Supreme Court justice at number eight, future justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, as he said, flawless skin, great smile, also has those, quote, new girl who just transferred in mid-semester vibes, which is undeniably hot.

William Douglas, no way. What? You put him above Louis Brandeis? What's wrong with you? Neil Gorsuch. Gorsuch has big silver fox energy the man's hair sits at the right hand of god fair enough um then he found like a high school yearbook photo of the chief i mean i actually was like no way but looking at the high school yearbook photo he kind of looks like tom brady i don't know that i find tom brady attractive but i acknowledge he is if that makes sense the hair just the hair david it i mean wow um then he has justice barrett at number four basically the marcia brady of the supreme court classically good looking features is this the most conservative Supreme Court justice in a hundred years? Possibly.

Is it the best looking court as a whole of all time? No question. Number three, Warren Burger. Definitely earned that three spot. Totally agree. He says generic looking? No way. Number two, Oliver Wendell Holmes.

This man is an absolute snack. Holmes is a Benedict Cumberbatch clone. He does look exactly like Benedict Cumberbatch. He would, unquestionable number two. I don't even, one and two are far and away ahead of everyone else on this list because number one, this won't surprise any Supreme court followers, Byron white, obviously a Superman vibe to him. I'll read that. The number one hottest justice justice is whizzer white. This isn't even close.

He's not just law school hot. He's a genuine hunk. The man has a jawline that can cut glass in the lips of an angel. If that wasn't enough, he played in the NFL during law school. David, it really isn't close. Wow. I read that list, and I laughed out loud probably seven or eight times out of the ten. Just the descriptions, it was fantastic.

Absolute snack. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. times out of the 10 just the descriptions it was fantastic absolute snack yeah so if you have any disagreements with the list any additions that you would make to us uh you know do let us know but you're not going to be justice white so don't even try you will not convince me there is no one else yeah it look at the list it's hilarious absolutely hilarious so yeah glad we included it anything else i think we're done oh man but we just have so much for monday we have the oral arguments we didn't cover the mcgirt revisited that's the oklahoma indian territory sovereignty case um uh and we had opinions today there There were other arguments. Woof. Just so much I'm missing.

I have an opinion or two I'm interested in. So, yeah, yeah. Like, we got a lot. It's going to be an awesome Monday. So, please check it out. As always, please subscribe where you get your podcasts. Please rate us where you get your podcasts. And please check out thedispatch.com.