PJI Urges Supreme Court to End Religious Discrimination in Virginia Tuition Grant Case

Amicus brief implores justices to reconsider Locke v. Davey and address state restrictions on funding for students pursuing religious vocations

WASHINGTON - Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) has filed an amicus curiae brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of a Virginia college student who lost access to state tuition assistance after changing her major to pursue a religious vocation.

The case, Hall v. Fleming, No. 26-193, asks the Supreme Court to reconsider its 2004 decision in Locke v. Davey, which upheld Washington state's exclusion of students pursuing devotional theology degrees from a generally available scholarship program.

PJI is participating as an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, in support of petitioner Bethany Hall. PJI attorneys Tracy Tribbett and Katherine Hartley submitted the brief on behalf of the organization, with Tribbett serving as counsel of record.

Hall is an undergraduate student at Liberty University who initially qualified for a $5,000 award through Virginia's Tuition Assistance Grant Program, known as VTAG. According to Hall's petition for a writ of certiorari, she later felt called to ministry and changed her major to Youth Ministries. Virginia deemed her new course of study ineligible for VTAG assistance. She remained ineligible after pursuing other ministry-related majors.

The restriction stems from Virginia's rules governing tuition assistance and the Virginia Constitution. Article VIII, Section 11 permits grants to students attending qualifying nonprofit institutions of higher education but excludes institutions whose primary purpose is to provide "religious training or theological education."

Hall sued A. Scott Fleming, director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, alleging that the exclusion violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. A federal district court dismissed Hall's claim, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed on May 13, concluding that Locke controlled the case. Hall petitioned the Supreme Court for review on Aug. 11.

PJI's brief asks the Court to reexamine Locke and focuses on the history and continuing effect of state constitutional provisions commonly known as Blaine amendments or no-aid provisions.

The proposed federal Blaine Amendment of the 1870s sought to prohibit public funding from supporting sectarian education. Although the federal amendment failed, similar restrictions appeared in state constitutions across the country. In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the Supreme Court recognized that anti-Catholic sentiment was a significant part of the Blaine movement's history.

PJI argues that Virginia's no-aid provisions carry forward principles associated with that movement by permitting public assistance for certain higher education while excluding religious training or theological education.

"Virginia made tuition assistance available to students pursuing higher education, but Bethany Hall lost that assistance when her education became vocationally religious," said PJI attorney Tracy Tribbett, counsel of record on PJI's amicus brief. "The Free Exercise Clause should not permit the government to draw a line that financially penalizes a student because she chooses to prepare for Christian ministry. We are asking the Supreme Court to hear this case and address the continuing effect of these religious exclusions."

PJI also argues that Supreme Court decisions issued since Locke have increasingly rejected religious exclusions from generally available public benefits. In Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, the Court held that Missouri could not exclude a church from a public grant because of its religious character. Espinoza prohibited Montana from excluding religious schools from a scholarship program based on religious status, and Carson v. Makin rejected Maine's exclusion of schools providing religious instruction from its tuition assistance program.

PJI argues those decisions have left Locke as an exception that permits states to treat students differently when public assistance would support preparation for religious ministry.

"Government should never force a student to choose between following a religious calling and receiving a public benefit available to other qualified students," said PJI Founder and President Brad Dacus. "Bethany Hall qualified for Virginia's tuition assistance program until she chose to prepare for ministry. PJI is asking the Supreme Court to confront a rule that allows government to treat religious vocational education differently simply because it is religious."

Hall's case presents the Supreme Court with an opportunity to decide whether Locke remains compatible with the Court's more recent interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause. PJI's brief urges the Court to grant Hall's petition and reconsider the precedent.

The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether it will hear the case.

Read PJI's amicus brief in Hall v. Fleming.

Read Bethany Hall's petition for a writ of certiorari.

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