It was the 2015 state championship football game, and two Christian high schools were ready to line up at Florida’s Citrus Bowl Stadium. The teams requested that a Christian prayer be said before the game, but they would need to use the public address system. The Florida High School Athletic Association, the state-chartered organization hosting the championship, refused.
One of the schools, Cambridge Christian, followed up by filing a First Amendment lawsuit in 2016, claiming its rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion had been violated. Florida’s attorney general and former football player Tim Tebow were among those who rallied behind the Tampa school.
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But their support wasn’t enough. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the school’s case. The court’s decision likely signals an end to a decade-long free-speech legal battle. Cambridge Christian, however, scored a victory in another venue.
SCOTUS balks
In other First Amendment cases this year, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of free speech rights of religious people in state-run forums. Those cases include Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which the court backed parents in Maryland who cited their religious beliefs in trying to opt out of LGBTQ-themed books for their children.
But as is somewhat common with the nation’s highest court, it did not explain why it refused to hear the Cambridge Christian case. The court chooses about 60 to 80 cases of significance each year, with thousands to choose from.
A lawyer for the school said the court’s decision was disappointing. But the athletic association said it was glad that the case is over.
“The Florida High School Athletic Association respects today’s decision by the United States Supreme Court, refusing to review a ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that the Association did not violate Cambridge Christian School’s free speech or burden its religious freedom in 2015,” Jessica Eley, an athletic association representative, said in a statement to Straight Arrow News. “We’re pleased with the decision and are happy to bring this matter to a close.”
The athletic association’s focus, Eley said, “remains on providing fair, equitable, and inclusive championship experiences for all member schools and student-athletes across Florida.”
Florida changes law
In 2023, however, the Florida Legislature approved a bill that said the athletic association “may not control, monitor, or review the content of the opening remarks and may not control the school’s choice of speaker” before championship games. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the bill into law.
“This case caused the Florida Legislature to change the law so that the FHSAA cannot again discriminate against its member religious schools by denying use of the loudspeaker for a pregame prayer,” Jesse Panuccio, an attorney with Boies Schiller Flexner LLP which partnered with First Liberty in representing Cambridge Christian, said in a statement to SAN.
In court filings, the school argued that it had been allowed to broadcast a public prayer in the stadium before the championship game three years earlier. Still, the athletic association countered that as a “state actor,” it could not grant the school’s request.
The court’s decision not to hear the case leaves the question unresolved nationally, even though Florida law now permits pre-game prayers.
“While it’s disappointing the Supreme Court chose not to take up the case to reverse the wrongheaded precedent that led to these events,” Panuccio said, “we are gratified that religious liberty protections in Florida are now stronger today than when we began this case.”
