back to center.
JimB, your questions are somewhat interesting but overall, way too overbroad for a court to take up. The idea is to make rulings as narrow as possible. The ninth circuit has a tendency to broaden the spectrum so as to cover their sometimes liberal bend. As petitioner was suing within the Free Speech and Establishment Claus, he had standing to be in federal court and as Conor so succinctly put it, "no good deed goes unmitigated." Here are the questions presented:
The questions presented are:
1. Whether a public-school employee who says a brief, quiet prayer by himself while at
school and visible to students is engaged in government speech that lacks any First
Amendment protection.
2. Whether, assuming that such religious expression is private and protected by the Free
Speech and Free Exercise Clauses, the Establishment Clause nevertheless compels public
schools to prohibit it.
Also, anyone can sue and in this case the petitioner (plaintiff) already has sued and lost in the lower court but now seeks an appeal of that finding.
Btw, Conor, thanks for citing the briefs so that I and others didn't have to search.