WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a lower-court ruling allowing student-led prayers during a Florida county's high school graduation ceremonies.
The high court's refusal to review the case sets no precedent, and the justices could rule on the issue in some future case. However, Monday's action leaves in place an appeals court ruling that holds sway in Florida, Georgia and Alabama.
"Invocations, benedictions and other prayers or religious messages traditionally have been offered at Duval County, Fla., public high school graduation ceremonies," a petition from student challengers of the policy told the Supreme Court.
Following the Supreme Court's ruling in 1992's Lee vs. Weisman, the county stopped the practice.
However, the very next year the county responded to public pressure and allowed student-led prayer at graduations, as opposed to school-sanctioned prayer by authority figures.
The student leading each year's prayer is chosen by a vote of senior class officers. The vote is overseen by the school faculty and administration.
During the graduation ceremony, the audience is told to stand for the prayer, but not for other portions of the program.
Challengers of the policy filed suit in federal court to stop the practice in Duval County's 17 public high schools.
A federal judge ruled for the school district, and the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta agreed.
The challengers then asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
On that first go-around, the justices threw out the appeals court ruling and ordered a rehearing based on the Supreme Court's decision in 2000's Santa Fe Ind. School District vs. Doe.
In Santa Fe, a majority of the Supreme Court ruled that a Texas school's policy of student-led prayer at football games was unconstitutional.
At the second hearing, the appeals court again ruled for the school district, with four dissenters. The appeals court majority said it could not ban Duval's student-led prayer "without effectively banning all religious speech at school graduations, no matter how private the message or how divorced the content of the message may be from any state review, let alone censorship. Santa Fe does not go that far, and we are not prepared to take such a step."
After the second appeals court loss, the challengers again asked the Supreme Court to intervene. Monday, the justices refused to do so in a one-line order denying review in the case.
The Supreme Court's action leaves student-led prayer at graduation constitutional in some parts of the country and unconstitutional in others. For instance, an appeals court in the 9th U.S. Circuit -- holding sway on the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii -- has said such prayer is unconstitutional. An appeals court in the 5th U.S. Circuit -- holding sway in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi -- has ruled that such prayer is constitutional.
However, the Supreme Court justices have consistently ducked the issue over the years, rejecting a cascade of cases with student-led graduation prayer at their core.
The rejections are a sign that neither the Court's liberal block nor its conservative block is certain of reaching a majority decision on the issue. Faced with such uncertainty, the justices on each political wing of the court prefer to let the matter ride for the moment.
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(No. 01-287, Adler et al vs. Duval County School Board)
