TALLAHASSEE - After a nine-year legal battle, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up an appeal by a Tampa Christian school that contended its speech rights were violated when it was prevented from offering a prayer over a stadium loudspeaker before a 2015 state championship football game.

The Supreme Court, as is common, did not explain its reasons. But the decision effectively was a victory for the Florida High School Athletic Association and let stand a ruling last year by a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Attorneys for Cambridge Christian School in June filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to take up the case, which stemmed from a championship game between Cambridge Christian and Jacksonville’s University Christian School at Orlando’s Camping Worl

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