Florida lawmakers have passed legislation that better protects students and staff who express their religious faith on public school property.

Introduced by state Sen. Dennis Baxley, the Religious Liberties Act went into effect July 1.

The new law creates uniformity across the state because it requires a model school board policy, says Liberty Counsel attorney Mat Staver.

“Not only would you have it in state law,” he says, “but you would have it in the local school board policy in every one of the 67 counties.”

The law requires school districts to allow students to wear religious clothing and jewelry, participate in religious activities before and after school, and to express their own religious beliefs in classroom coursework without being punished for their views, CBN News reported.

OneNewsNow often reports on such cases on public school campuses where anti-religious school leaders, or more often leaders frightened by an atheist group’s lawsuit, clamp down on expressions of faith.

A recent case occurred in April in Florida, where students said an openly lesbian teacher told them to remove cross jewelry because it was linked to street gangs. The teacher, Lora Jane Riedas, teaches math at Riverview High School in Tampa.

The school claimed it investigated the matter and found the teacher did nothing wrong, but Staver and Liberty Counsel pushed for punishment on behalf of students who said they were punished by the teacher.

A May 8 newspaper story that reported Riedas was “cleared” of wrongdoing also reported that she had, in fact, banned students from wearing rosaries in her classroom because they are considered gang symbols.

It’s unclear if that case, which garnered national attention, is linked to Sen. Baxley’s bill.

“Part of what we’re protecting is those basic rights for religious expression – which are protected free speech –and we’re letting people know it doesn’t stop at the property line of the school site,” Baxley said of the bill. “We owe our educators some clarity on this so it can be applied uniformly across the state and in a way that respects all faiths and people of no faith.”