court cases to watch Surveying the news over the past week, I see action in a trio of cases working through our federal court system that are worth keeping an eye on from a religious liberty perspective. All three ask courts to apply and interpret relatively recent Supreme Court decisions. Here is a brief rundown of the cases I am watching: Cambridge Christian School, a private religious high school in Florida, has appealed a District Court decision upholding the state athletic association’s refusal to allow a pre-game prayer to be broadcast over the public address system prior to a state championship game involving two Christian schools. Back in March of this year, the district court granted summary judgment to the athletic association and dismissed the school’s case because the court found the speech at issue was government speech and thus the restrictions do not violate the Free Speech or Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment. The court cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in Santa Fe v. Doe (2000) in which a school’s practice of broadcasting pre-game prayers over the loudspeaker was held unconstitutional. Since that time, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton , in […]
