A couple of cases or issues come to mind.
A school board member is not an employee of a school but is a government official who makes laws just like a member of the city council, the state or US Congress. Those laws may be unconstitutional and although a government official can’t be sued directly, the school district can be. The official won’t be paying for the contempt of court out of his pocket but the school district that he represents might be.
In Kennedy, he was praying on school grounds but in a personal prayer after the game. The school district had the mistaken belief, which several districts do, that anytime a person prays while at work or on government grounds that it is a violation of the Constitution. It isn’t. The Supreme Court ruled that the prayer was private and Kennedy’s coaching duties for the school district had ended after the game.
In a southeast Texas case (actually from the same district that Nederland and PNG were in as recently as 2022) that went to the Supreme Court, Santa Fe ISD v. Doe.
In SFISD the Supreme Court ruled that even student led prayer prior to a football game violated the Establishment Clause. The school district had no say so in the prayer. The students elected whether to have a prayer and voted on a student who was to give the prayer. Since no school employee was involved and in since the students had complete control and the district only allowed the opportunity to do student prayer, thought that it would pass a constitutional challenge.
It didn’t.
If the students on their own wanted to pray, great. Student led prayer for the masses at a football stadium, who are free to leave or not attend if they don’t like it, had their rights violated according to the Supreme Court.
As recently as two months ago in the Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans, they unanimously ruled that Louisiana having basically the same law as Texas requiring the Ten Commandments, violated the Constitution. The Fifth Circuit has jurisdiction over Texas and only the Supreme Court can overturn the Fifth Circuit.
I am not endorsing the decisions but only stating them as I believe they were ruled.
