BREMERTON — Former Bremerton High School football coach Joe Kennedy is the recipient of the annual Rosa Parks Courage Award from the Family Policy Institute of Washington.

FPIW is “a coalition of allied national and local organizations to create public policy that recognizes and respects the significance and sanctity of the family,” according to the website, www.fpiw.org.

State Rep. Brad Klippert describes FPIW as “an exceptional voice for the traditional family in the Washington State government. They are an outstanding organization, which fearlessly stands up to protect and defend the vales of pro-life, pro-traditional family, parental rights and religious freedom.”

FPIW’s Rosa Parks Courage Award is “given to a citizen for showing exceptional courage in the face of adversity.”

Kennedy made headlines in 2015 for holding public prayers midfield after football games while still on duty as a public school coach, often joined by members of the football team, which violated district policy. The Bremerton School District suspended Kennedy, and ultimately opted not to renew his contract with the district.

In response to the prayers, BSD superintendent Aaron Leavell wrote to Kennedy on Oct. 23: “When you engaged in religious exercise immediately following the game on Oct. 16, you were still on duty for the district. You were at the event, and on the field, under the game lights, in Bremerton High School-logoed attire, in front of an audience of event attendees, solely by virtue of your employment by the district.

“The field is not an open forum to which members of the public are invited following completion of the games; but even if it were, you continued to have job responsibilities, including the supervision of players.

“While I understand that your religious exercise was fleeting, it nevertheless drew you away from your work. More importantly, any reasonable observer saw a district employee, on the field only by virtue of his employment with the district, still on duty, under the bright lights of the stadium, engaged in what was clearly, given your prior public conduct, overtly religious conduct.”

In response to that, Liberty Institute lawyer Mike Berry said, “He’s incorrect on the law.”

Berry also stated that the school district refused Kennedy’s request for religious accommodation, meaning they will not allow him to pray on the 50-yard line after football games.

“Not only did they reject that request, but … they went even further and said that their policy was that the school district was not going to allow any visible (religious expression), which could conceivably mean that Jewish employees couldn’t wear Yamakas, and Islamic employees could not wear hijabs.”

Kennedy, represented by the Liberty Institute, a Texas-based nonprofit law firm, filed a religious discrimination charge against the school district with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in December 2015.

In the charge, Kennedy said, “(Bremerton School District) violated my rights to free exercise of religion and free speech by prohibiting my private religious expression.”

Filing an EEOC complaint is the final step Kennedy must take before filing a lawsuit against the school district.

Kennedy will receive the award at FPIW’s annual dinner Friday, May 6. Steve Largent, former player of the Seattle Seahawks, Hall of Fame wide receiver and former congressman, will deliver the keynote speech.

Individual and group tickets, as well as sponsorship packets, for the FPIW dinner are limited. If interested in purchasing a ticket, visit www.fpiw.org/annualdinner. For more information, visit www.fpiw.org or call 425-608-0242.