Published on November 17, 2025 at 3:12 pm
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After a nine-year legal battle, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up an appeal by a Tampa Christian school that contended its speech rights were violated when it was prevented from offering a prayer over a stadium loudspeaker before a 2015 state championship football game.
The Supreme Court, as is common, did not explain its reasons. But the decision effectively was a victory for the Florida High School Athletic Association and let stand a ruling last year by a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Attorneys for Cambridge Christian School in June filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to take up the case, which stemmed from a championship game between Cambridge Christian and Jacksonville’s University Christian School at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium.
The athletic association, a nonprofit governing body for high school sports, denied the use of the loudspeaker for a prayer. The teams prayed on the field before and after the game. Those prayers could not be heard by people in the stands.
Cambridge Christian filed the lawsuit in 2016, and the dispute went to the Atlanta-based appeals court twice. In last year’s decision, a three-judge panel of the court concluded that announcements over the loudspeaker at the game were “government speech,” as they were scripted and controlled by the association. It said the association’s decision to block a prayer over the public-address system did not violate free-speech rights.
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But the school’s petition filed at the Supreme Court described the appeals court ruling as “egregiously wrong” and alleged potentially far-reaching effects if it was not overturned.
