A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld on Friday an amendment to the Nebraska Constitution that bans gay marriage and also prohibits the University of Nebraska and other arms of the state government from offering health and other benefits to the partners of gay employees. The unanimous ruling, which reversed a lower court, will not have an immediate effect on the university because it does not offer such benefits to gay employees.

The appeals court’s ruling may prove to be a setback, however, for efforts to extend such benefits at public colleges and universities elsewhere. Recent trends have been running in favor of universities’ granting domestic-partner benefits, and a recent report by the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for gay rights, found that 92 percent of the nation’s top 25 universities, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, provided benefits to same-sex partners. A number of large state university systems—including those in Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas—do not offer such benefits, and Friday’s ruling could make it less likely that they will anytime soon.