Two Minnesota Christian colleges are challenging the state After a decades have been amended to exclude them from participating in the double registration program of the State, because students of students are obliged to sign beliefs.
Since 1985 The postsecundary registration program of Minnesota Stilled thousands of high school students, who wanted to visit both private and public colleges, to register for a program and at the same time receive free high school and university points. In 2023, the State changed the Program Act to exclude schools that require students to sign a declaration of faith on the application, a decision that, according to legal representation, would exclude Crown College and the University of Northwestern, St. Paul. Now the colleges are fighting the measure and say that it discriminates on the basis of religious practices.
Fox News Digital spoke with Diana Thomson of the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, who represents the schools in the case against the state.
A cross is outside a church in Culhuacan, Mexico City, Mexico, on December 26 (photo by Gerardo Vieyra/Nurphoto via Getty Images)
“The Supreme Court has said in the last ten years that the government, especially in the context of education, does not have to offer financing to private schools,” Thomson told Fox News Digital. “It manages public schools. It does not have to offer financing to private schools, but once it does, the religious schools cannot exclude on the basis of their religious status, their religious practice. So there are cases throughout the country where governments try to circumvent this, what the Supreme Court has said, and religious schools exclude from educational programs. This is the only program that I know is a double registration program. ”
In the court documents it is claimed that officials have selected the practices of the two colleges, even go so far that they call the declarations of beliefs’ creepy ‘and’ admit that the purpose of the amendment was to force Crown and Northwestern to give up their statements of faith. ‘
“One of the things you have heard of the legislators … during the discovery process … was …” These other schools do not need a declaration of faith. Why can’t Crown and Northwestern just do what they do? Why can’t they just take over their religious beliefs? ”, Thomson told Fox News, in which he explained that the Constitution does not require that schools change their beliefs to receive public dollars.
“From proposal to Passage, the amendment was aimed at the claimants,” the court case claims. “The staff admitted that the proposal was inspired by objections to admission standards that require students to ‘actively practice (their) Christian faith’ (eg 21 at 1.) MDE also wanted to eliminate all the messages that ‘to a potential student could convey that he/she is not welcome to follow a PSEO course … because of (the) biblical worldview (of the school). ” (Reynolds.tr.1 132: 8-133: 19.) “
Thomson said the law is not about the “separation of church and stateIt’s about choice. ”
“It is about giving students the choice where they want to go to school. Students have the choice to go to the University of Minnesota, to every public or private school in Minnesota that this program offers,” she said. “Some students want to choose schools that establish a community that enables them to propagate their faith. That is what this program allows. It does not establish a religion in which the government offers options.”
If the provision is assumed, the lawyer says that families who have sent all their children to Crown and Northwestern will not have the same opportunities for their younger children who want to obtain double registration points.
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“I think it is important that governments understand that they cannot exclude religious schools and religious entities from participation in government programs only because of their religious activities, “says Thomson. “Membership of religious organizations is a fundamental constitutional law that is protected by the first amendment. If the government is involved, that is a flagrant violation of the Constitution. ”
Fox News Digital contacted the Minnesota Department of Education and the Commissioner’s Office. They did not respond to several requests for comments.
