The U.S. Supreme Court could decide in September whether to take up a years-long battle about whether a Tampa Christian school should have been barred from offering a prayer over a stadium loudspeaker before a high school football championship game.
Justices are scheduled to discuss the case during a closed-door conference on Sept. 29, according to an online docket. The court uses such conferences to determine which cases it will hear.
Attorneys for Tampa’s Cambridge Christian School want the Supreme Court to overturn a decision last year by a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with the Florida High School Athletic Association.
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The case stems from a decision by the association to bar Cambridge Christian from offering a pre-game prayer over the loudspeaker before a 2015 championship game at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium.
The three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based appeals court concluded that announcements over the loudspeaker at the football game were “government speech,” as they were scripted and controlled by the athletic association.
It said the association’s decision to block a prayer did not violate free-speech rights.
But in a petition filed at the Supreme Court, attorneys for Cambridge Christian described that ruling as “egregiously wrong” and alleged potentially far-reaching effects if it is not overturned.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and attorneys general from 17 other states filed a brief this month backing Cambridge Christian and urging the Supreme Court to take up the case.
