Freedom From Religion Foundation Staff Attorney Chris Line and FFRF Multimedia Producer Leo Costello on this week’s episode of “Secular Spotlight” detail FFRF’s work that removed a religious representative from a Pennsylvania public school football team.

FFRF challenged Conemaugh Township Area High School for allowing a “character coach” affiliated with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) to lead Christian devotionals and prayers with the football team. After a letter from FFRF, the Conemaugh Township Area School District investigated the matter and removed the outside adult from the program, clarifying that only truly student-led religious activities are permitted. The outcome reinforces the constitutional line between students’ religious freedom and adult-led proselytizing in public schools.

“We let the district know you can’t let outside adult organizations in to lead, organize or regularly participate in any sort of student religious club,” Line says. “That’s how the FCA gets away with this. FCA is a student club, which makes it legal. And as long as it’s actually a student club, a bunch of students getting together and saying, ‘We’re all Christians, we just want to get together as a student club, you love student clubs. We want to do this,’ that’s totally fine. The problem is the FCA intentionally will just have adults lead these.”

You can catch the latest episode of “Secular Spotlight” on FFRF’s YouTube channel, as well as by watching on your smart TV after downloading FFRF’s free app, Freethought TV, which also highlights FFRF’s other video programming. Previous episodes include a deep dive into the 2026 National Prayer Breakfast, and a conversation with Bishop Joseph Tolton about the global rise of authoritarianism and its connection to fundamentalist ideology. See our full playlist for more videos!

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 42,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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