The U.S. Supreme Court has quietly turned down a Christian school’s bid to defend its right to offer a public prayer before a football game.

On November 17, 2025, the Court declined, without comment, to hear the case brought by Cambridge Christian School against Florida’s high school athletic authority, effectively ending a legal battle that had lasted nearly a decade, as The Christian Post reports.

The dispute began at a December 2015 state championship at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, where Cambridge Christian School and University Christian School jointly requested to open the game with a prayer broadcast over the stadium’s loudspeaker.

Court Sides With State Action Over Free Expression

The Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) said “no,” claiming it could not legally approve such religious expression in a public venue funded by taxpayers. The group’s then-director, Roger Dearing, told the schools that the public nature of the facility, along with the FHSAA’s own status as a “State Actor,” made the prayer off-limits under federal law.

“A public facility, predominantly paid for with public tax dollars,” Dearing explained, “makes the facility ‘off limits’ under federal guidelines and precedent court cases.”

In 2016, Cambridge Christian sued the FHSAA, backed by the faith-based legal group First Liberty Institute and the law firm Greenberg Traurig. Their argument: the ban wasn’t just bad policy—it violated First Amendment rights.

Initial Lower Court Ruling Favored the State

The first swing of the legal hammer came in 2017, when U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell dismissed the school’s claims. She found that the proposed prayer over the PA system would be interpreted as “government speech,” and permitted the FHSAA to say no under the Constitution’s Establishment Clause.

But the case wasn’t over. In 2019, a three-judge appellate panel on the 11th Circuit partially reversed Honeywell’s decision. Judge Stanley Marcus wrote that the lower court had been too hasty in tossing out all of Cambridge Christian’s allegations.

“The schools’ claims for relief under the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses have been adequately and plausibly pled,” Marcus noted, giving Cambridge Christian renewed momentum in the case.

Second Review Shifts Decision Back to the State

The appellate panel sent the case back to Judge Honeywell, who once again ruled against the school in 2022, stating that even if the prayer reflected private speech, no constitutional harm had occurred.

There was one last glimpse of hope: a second 11th Circuit panel took a final look in 2024, this time siding with state officials. Judge Ed Carnes wrote that the FHSAA “was regulating its own expression” and that the prayer, rendered over the stadium’s microphone, should be treated as government-endorsed speech.

“Because we conclude that the FHSAA was regulating its own expression when it restricted pregame speech over the PA system at the 2015 football championships … Cambridge Christian’s free exercise claims fail,” Carnes ruled.

Supreme Court Declines to Intervene

Undeterred, Cambridge Christian filed a petition with the Supreme Court in June 2025. As many had feared—and others expected—the court passed, with no explanation.

Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for First Liberty Institute, called the high court's inaction a disappointment, warning it allows government agencies to silence religious speech selectively. “The Eleventh Circuit’s decision to label the prayer as government speech abandons the foundational promises of the First Amendment that are meant to guarantee individual freedom,” Dys said.

Dys also emphasized that the spoken prayer "cannot be government speech because the only view to be expressed would have come from Cambridge, not the FHSAA.” It’s hard to argue otherwise when the mic is in private hands, but the court evidently saw no reason to question the lower decision.

New Florida Law Creates Opportunities While the Case Ends

Ironically, Florida has since passed legislation that may make future incidents like this one less likely. In 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill permitting teams to offer brief opening remarks before games, including religious speech, if they choose to include it.

So while Cambridge Christian struck out in the courtroom, lawmakers in Tallahassee at least ensured teams can try again—without begging unelected bureaucrats for approval to pray.

It’s a telling moment for how far we’ve drifted from a public square that protects, rather than polices, religious expression. No mob demanded the prayer be stopped in 2015. Government lawyers did.