The Freedom From Religion Foundation is taking action after a Brevard Public Schools (Fla.) high school football coach recently hosted a Christian full-body immersion baptism for players after practice.
Multiple concerned community members have reported that the Astronaut High School football team in Titusville has become entangled with religion. FFRF, a national state/church watchdog, was informed that the head football coach invited a local pastor to baptize players after practice on July 18, under the guise of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
Florida’s Voice reported that 25 players were baptized — and even one public school grounds worker who happened on the scene.
“It is illegal for public school athletic coaches to lead their teams in religious activities,” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line wrote in a letter to district superintendent Mark Rendell.
It is inappropriate and unconstitutional for public school coaches to engage in religious practices or prayer with students, FFRF notes. Brevard Public Schools must ensure that any school-sponsored religious coercion ends immediately. The team’s coaches must immediately cease infusing the football program with religion. FFRF asserts that all coaches and staff should be instructed regarding their obligations as public school employees.
It is unconstitutional for public school employees to direct students to partake in religious activities. The Fifth Circuit held that a coach’s attempts to engage in religious activities with players at team events were unconstitutional because the religious promotion took place “during school-controlled, curriculum-related activities that members of the [athletic] team are required to attend. During these activities [district] coaches and other school employees are present as representatives of the school and their actions are representative of [district] policies.”
The religious coercion occurring within the District’s football program is particularly troubling for those parents and students who are not Christians or do not subscribe to any religion. Thirty-seven percent of the American population is non-Christian, including the almost 30 percent who are nonreligious. At least a third of Generation Z (those born after 1996) have no religion, with a recent survey revealing almost half of Gen Z qualify as “nones” (religiously unaffiliated).
FFRF says the district must take action to end baptisms or other school-hosted or encouraged religious or proselytizing events. Any coaches involved in them must be directed to cease including coercive religious activities and practices in the program. Coaches may not push their personal religious beliefs onto students while acting in their official capacity, nor enlist outside adults to do the same.
It is more than disturbing that Brevard Public Schools Chair Megan Wright is publicly celebrating the Christian baptisms, adds FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.
“Our public schools exist to educate, not to indoctrinate in religion and student athletes should not have to pray to play,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “I might add that these baptisms are not only unconstitutional, they are unhygienic!”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with more than 40,000 members and several chapters across the country, including more than 2,000 members and a chapter in Florida, the Central Florida Freethought Community. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
