Upper-Class Competition Results Announced

Forty-four Scalia Law students competed on October 22 in seven intense rounds at the school’s upper-class moot court competition. Cala Coffman and Kiley Gomez emerged victorious, arguing for which approach the First Circuit should take on Establishment Clause questions raised in view of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.

The problem presented two issues: whether a school board meeting is a legislative or school setting, and whether a school board coerced students and parents into participating in religious expression. Virginia Supreme Court Justice Thomas Mann and Judges Anthony Trenga and Stuart Raphael, Eastern District of Virginia, presided.

Justice Mann praised Coffman’s performance as “remarkable” and said “it does not get much better than that.” Judge Trenga remarked on Gomez’s “consistent poise under challenging questions.”