AP/MINNEAPOLIS A Minnesota legislation that prohibits religious tests for universities that take part in a state program that permits high school students to enroll in college courses for credit is being considered by a federal judge.
At a hearing on Monday, the state contended that the 2023 law appropriately protects high school students who are cisgender, non-Christian, and straight and whose gender identification corresponds to the sex they were assigned at birth.
The measure targets the University of Northwestern in Roseville and Crown College in St. Bonifacius, the only two conservative Christian universities in the state that compel students to sign statements of faith. A group of parents and high school students who are enrolled in or want to enroll in those institutions for college credits are seeking to overturn the law, claiming it infringes on their First Amendment right to religious freedom to attend schools with campus cultures that align with their views.
High school students can earn free credits at state expense at public or private schools of their choice under the long-running Minnesota Postsecondary Enrollment Options program, provided that the courses taken are nonsectarian. Approximately 60,000 kids have benefited from it. After learning more than ten years ago that Crown and Northwestern in Roseville exclude students who are LGBTQ+ or who are not Christian from campus events, state education officials began working to amend the legislation governing the program.
When Democrats took control of both chambers in 2023, the law passed after multiple earlier attempts to amend it failed in a split Legislature. Following a session that passed a number of comprehensive new protections for LGBTQ+ rights, Democratic Governor Tim Walz signed it into law.
The states and institutions have an agreement that prohibits the law from being applied while judicial challenges, including appeals, are ongoing. At the conclusion of the hearing, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel did not specify when she would make her decision. After two hours of extremely intricate legal debates, she did, however, reaffirm with both sides that, should a final settlement not be reached by then, the law will continue to be put on hold until the following school year.
During the hearing, Assistant Attorney General Jeff Timmerman made the case that the state of Minnesota had a fundamental right to shield its students from discrimination.
However, after the state had long permitted the two institutions to limit enrollment to the program, Eric Baxter, an attorney from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, argued the court that the rule unfairly singled them out.
According to Baxter, there is no proof that the admissions procedures at Crown and Northwestern were creating such a significant issue that they had to limit these institutions’ religious practices.
Citing high court rulings in Montana, Maine, and Missouri cases, Baxter contended that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions in recent years that the First Amendment prohibits excluding participants based on religion after a state begins subsidizing private institutions.He said that a Supreme Court ruling in a Philadelphia case had established that religious groups’ freedom to practice their faith is not superseded by a state’s need to ban discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals.
“Those precedents don’t fit this case,” Timmerman retorted. Because the school’s regulations exclude LGBTQ+ students based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, not only students of other religions, the state’s attorneys claimed in their brief that the law was revised to prevent all types of discrimination, not just religious discrimination. Additionally, they said that there is no proof that the universities’ religious practices or beliefs will be harmed by accepting high school students who are LGBTQ+ or non-Christian.
One of the biggest providers of classes to high school students under the state program is Northwestern, whose prior presidents included well-known preacher Billy Graham. All students are welcome to enroll in online courses at both institutions, regardless of their religious convictions.
Following the incident, Baxter stated that while many states have college credit programs similar to Minnesota’s, the majority of states that have attempted to bar religious organizations have been defeated.
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