Washington ? Millions of school children may continue, for now, to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with the phrase “one nation, under God” as the result of a Supreme Court ruling Monday.

In an 8-0 decision, the high court said a California man did not have a legal right to challenge the wording of the pledge on behalf of his daughter.

The decision preserved the pledge as it has been recited since 1954 and reversed a lower court decision that said the words “under God” violated the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.

Analysts on both sides of the issue said it was likely to come before the court again.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Clarence Thomas said in written opinions that the 50-year-old version of the pledge does not run afoul of the Constitution. “Reciting the pledge, or listening to others recite it, is a patriotic exercise, not a religious one,” Rehnquist wrote.

But the court’s ruling sidestepped the constitutional issue. It said that because Michael A. Newdow, a California doctor and lawyer, does not have custody of his 9-year-old daughter, he does not have the right to represent her before the justices. The girl’s mother, Sandra Banning, who has custody, has said she does not object to her daughter having to recite the pledge.

In the majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, “When hard questions of domestic relations are sure to affect the outcome, the prudent course is for the federal court to stay its hand rather than reach out to resolve a weighty question of federal constitutional law.”

Justice Antonin Scalia did not participate in the case because he had commented on it before it reached the Supreme Court. Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer joined in Stevens’ majority opinion but did not comment on the constitutional issue.