Three years after the Supreme Court ruled for a high school football coach who wished to pray on the 50-yard line, the justices are being asked to extend that right to pray over the loudspeaker ahead of a game.
In a dispute brought by Cambridge Christian School in Tampa, Florida, the justices face a case from 2000 that held student-led prayer over a loudspeaker before a game violated the Establishment Clause, which says the government can’t endorse any one religion.
The private school argues that its First Amendment right to free speech and free exercise was violated when school representatives weren’t allowed to pray over the loudspeaker ahead of its title game. The school was playing a fellow Christian school, and both sought to engage in the pregame prayer.
The prayer over the loudspeaker had been allowed in a prior year, but in 2015, the Florida High School Athletic Association, which oversees public and private school athletics, said it would be considered government speech and an endorsement of religion. The association banned the pregame prayer.
The school sued in 2016, but lower courts sided against the Christian school in its free speech and free exercise of religion fight.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held there was no violation of free speech rights and that the prayer over the loudspeaker could be deemed government speech.
This prompted Cambridge Christian School to ask the justices to hear their appeal.
“If the decision stands, it will be virtually impossible to overcome government-speech defenses, and the government will again be empowered ‘to single out private religious speech for special disfavor,’” the school’s petition read, which was filed Friday.
A spokesperson from the Florida High School Athletic Association didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
When the Supreme Court ruled three years ago for the coach who wished to pray midfield, the justices ruled that forbidding his prayer ran afoul of the First Amendment.
The Florida dispute is Cambridge Christian School v. Florida High School Athletic Association.
It would take four justices to vote in favor of hearing the legal battle for oral arguments to be granted during the justices’ next term, which begins in October.
