The Freedom From Religion Foundation is celebrating the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to leave in place a sound victory for the rights of students and families to be free from state-conveyed religious coercion.

The court’s denial of certiorari — issued with no noted dissents — in Cambridge Christian School v. Florida High School Athletic Association lets stand both its landmark 2000 ruling in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, barring school-sponsored prayer at football games, and a strong 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision finding that pregame messages over the public-address system at state championship games constitute government speech. The Supreme Court’s quiet refusal to take the case is a loud affirmation that public school events cannot be transformed into religious revivals.

“This is an important win for the constitutional rights of students and their families,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The Supreme Court’s refusal to revisit Santa Fe makes clear that public school athletic events are not opportunities for government-sponsored prayer.”

The Tampa-based Cambridge Christian School has spent nearly a decade attempting to force the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) to broadcast its prayer over the stadium loudspeaker before a 2015 championship football game. The school argued that denying it access to the PA system violated its free speech and free exercise rights. But as both the district court and the 11th Circuit held — and as the Supreme Court left untouched — the PA system at a state-sponsored, neutral-site championship is government-controlled and used solely for government speech.

FFRF filed an amicus brief with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2022 urging the court to reject Cambridge Christian’s demand for special treatment: “A private religious school does not have a constitutional right to commandeer the PA system at a state-sponsored athletic competition. The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment only protects private speech, it does not implicate government speech.”

“This whole case was an example of Christian privilege run amok,” says FFRF Senior Litigation Counsel Sam Grover, who drafted FFRF’s amicus brief. “If the Florida High School Athletic Association had opened its loudspeaker for private messages, Cambridge Christian could have claimed a right to equal access. But that wasn’t the situation. The loudspeaker was for government use only. The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case demonstrates how utterly wrong Cambridge Christian was on the law.”

The Supreme Court’s denial ensures that the constitutional guardrails around public school events remain intact. Students and families at state-organized athletic contests are entitled to enjoy the game without being subjected to religious proselytizing by a government-controlled PA system.

“This case was a blatant attempt to force a captive audience into Christian worship at a public event,” Gaylor adds. “The First Amendment protects us all — Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, and everyone else — from exactly that kind of state-sponsored religious coercion.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 42,000 members and several chapters nationwide, including more than 2,000 members and a chapter in Florida. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

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