(CHARISMA) -- A federal appeals court has upheld a Florida school board's policy that allows prayer at graduation ceremonies. The court handed an 8-4 ruling last week, reaffirming its earlier decision that Duval County's 1993 policy does not violate the separation of church and state, "The Jacksonville Times-Union" reported.
Critics of the policy, who include the American Civil Liberties Union, plan to appeal to U.S. Supreme Court. The policy's legality has been in limbo since the Supreme Court ruled last summer that student-led prayers at football games in Santa Fe, Texas, were unconstitutional, the newspaper reported.
But the appeals court stated in its ruling that there were enough differences between the two cases to uphold Duval County's policy. Its policy states that students can vote on whether they want to select a speaker -- who decides what message they want to give. It may include a prayer, poem or other statement. The Santa Fe policy allowed students to decide by vote whether to have prayer.
Mat Staver of the Orlando, Fla.-based Liberty Counsel, which represented Duval County students who wanted prayer at graduation, called the court's ruling "a stunning victory for student speech." He added: "Students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or freedom of religion when they enter the graduation podium."