New Supreme Court decisions have been positive to religious institutions that received vouchers
Three Virginia students are bringing legal action against the Commonwealth of Virginia in national court after being denied entry to state-run tuition assistance programs because they were forced to choose to do religious studies.
The kids are suing the Virginia Department of Military Affairs and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, both supported by Alliance Defending Freedom.
The students, who all attend Liberty University in Lynchburg or intend to attend it, claim that because they intend to study in religious-oriented programs like” Music and Worship,” they have been denied other funding for education assistance. According to the petition, they may receive funding for comparable religious studies if they attended public universities.
One student had a grant ask denied through the condition National Guard program, while the Council of Higher Education has since denied the other two pupils ‘ offers.
More remarks were made by an ADF counsel during a phone conversation with The College Fix.
Counsel Jake Reed compared Johnson to the precedent set in three new decisions that argued that” the Supreme Court reiterated in all those situations again that you can’t remove religious spectators because they are religious or because they practice their religion for public purposes.”
In the 2020 event Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the Supreme Court ruled that parents could not be exempt from a school choice program simply because they made the decision to use the funds at a Christian college. In a comparable case, cases/2021/20-1088″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Carson v. Makin, the Supreme Court ruled two years later that Maine could hardly exempt religious institutions from its own voucher plan. The Supreme Court ruled in the Trinity Lutheran event in 2017 that because of its spiritual significance, a Lutheran school could not be exempt from a recycled rubber system for parks.
According to Reed, these decisions are comparable to what the Liberty individuals are facing.
Any student who attends a personal nonprofit school in Virginia is enroll in the program, according to Reed, who says it is essentially available to all majors. They want to enroll in a program in mathematics, history, philosophy, or even some religion, but they [students ] are unable to enroll in the plan our three users chose in this case.
He added that the ADF’s situation is supported further by the fact that the students in question are not actually working in ministerial positions either.
Reed concluded his remarks by saying that “our Constitution requires that the government treat similarly situated people equally,” but that the kids in issue are “being treated largely as second class people,” despite the Constitution’s demands.
Following a lawsuit brought by Luther Rice College and Seminary, ADF just settled a similar complaint against Georgia.
Two forwarded requests for comment on the petition from the State Council of Higher Education and the Virginia Department of Military Affairs did not respond.
However, a professor of religion at the University of Notre Dame claimed that Virginia’s status is supported by at least one Supreme Court case, Locke v. Davey.
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According to a conclusion provided by Oyez, the Supreme Court upheld a Washington award program that forbids students from using the money to pursue” a degree in theology” if the system is taught to reason belief.
According to Professor Gerard Bradley,” the defendants have compelling arguments based on the choice since Locke is in favor of reversing that holding,” and it is possible that the Court may support the plaintiffs by upholding Locke.
He did not respond to a follow-up inquiry regarding which specific circumstances supported upholding the Locke precedence.
Bradley echoed the ADF’s claim that, unlike Locke, the Virginia students are not always pursuing department as a career niche.
He claimed that a bachelor’s degree in theology is “pretty much” from the “devotional philosophy” level the claimant in Locke was pursuing.
Bradley said there are strong arguments that excluding the kids from the Virginia award programs amounts to “raw spiritual discrimination,” which may help them get their event because an undergraduate degree is different from “becoming a secretary.”
MORE: A decade later, analysis uncovers that 75 % of Truman Scholars were engaged in liberal politics.
A young adult prays over a Bible, Reena Black/Pexels, in an image capture and credit card.
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