WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court turned aside a church-state fight over a Spanaway, Wash., Bible club given permission by a lower court to meet in a public school during class time.

Attorneys for the Bethel School District superintendent argued that a federal appeals court was far out of bounds when it ruled in favor of the Bible club last year. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the club, called World Changers, should be treated the same as other school clubs and allowed to use school space and supplies.

Spanaway Lake High School set aside class time each morning for students to receive tutoring, do homework, attend assemblies or attend meetings of clubs approved by the school. Attendance at some approved activity was mandatory.

“No other court has ever held that religious clubs have the right to meet in a public school during instructional time when attendance is mandated,” the school’s lawyers argued in court papers.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit reversed a lower court’s dismissal of a complaint filed five years ago by Tausha Prince, then a sophomore at the Tacoma-area school.

Prince argued the school district violated her First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion, as well as the Equal Access Act, a 1984 law forbidding public schools that take federal money from excluding religious or political extracurricular clubs if they allow others.

Officials with the Bethel district maintained that it allowed Prince and her classmates in World Changers to meet at school by establishing a separate category of student-run religious organizations.

The school noted that the club’s stated goals include a pledge to “Evangelize our campus for Jesus Christ,” and to “teach students that Jesus Christ is the Answer to the confusion, pain and uncertainty this world offers.”

The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” a phrase that has come to mean a general ban on government promotion or endorsement of religion. The First Amendment also guarantees that government will not interfere with the “free exercise” of religion.

Prince asked the school district for permission to form World Changers in the fall of 1997, but officials said that because it was a religious group, it could not be set up as a regular student group.

That meant World Changers could not use a pool of funds for club activities. Members could not make announcements over the school’s public address system, and they were limited to posting notices on one bulletin board rather than throughout the school.

The case is Jacoby v. Prince, 02-1610.