ACLJ Asks Supreme Court to Strike Down Anti-Religious Discrimination in State Scholarship Program.

Business Editors/Legal Writers

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 9, 2003

The American Center for Law and Justice, an international public interest law firm, today announced it has filed its brief with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the high court to uphold an appeals court ruling that determined the state of Washington discriminated against a college student when it denied the student state scholarship funds because he majored in Pastoral Ministries.

"There is no basis upon which a state should be permitted to discriminate against a student who chooses to major in religious studies," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which is challenging a discriminatory policy before the Supreme Court. "What happened in Washington State is not only wrong, but unconstitutional. To carve out a religious exclusion in scholarship funding and prohibit state scholarship funds from being used to finance the education of a student who chooses to major in theology violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The appeals court clearly understood the policy was unconstitutional and we're hopeful the Supreme Court will uphold that decision."

The ACLJ is representing Joshua Davey, who attended Northwest College in Kirkland, Washington and who was awarded the state's Promise Scholarship because of academic excellence and financial need. The state withdrew the more than $2,500 in scholarship funds awarded to Davey for the 1999-2001 school years because Davey declared a double major that included Pastoral Ministries and Business Management. The state said scholarship funds could not go to a student who pursued a degree in religious studies when taught from a religious perspective. In July 2002, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned a district court ruling and declared the Washington policy unconstitutional and concluded that the state "impermissibly deprived Davey of his scholarship."

In its brief filed with the Supreme Court, the ACLJ asserts the Washington policy violates the First Amendment. The brief contends that the policy specifically violates the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses because of "the state's express, discriminatory disqualification of otherwise eligible scholarship recipients, solely because they declare a major in theology taught from a religious point of view..." The brief also contends that "because the state's anti-religious discrimination embodies hostility, not neutrality, toward religion, and because a disqualification tied to private religious choices yields impermissible state entanglement with religion..." the restriction also violates the Establishment Clause. The brief is posted at the ACLJ website at www.aclj.org.

The Supreme Court has not yet scheduled oral arguments in the case, but those are likely to occur in December. Sekulow will present oral arguments in the case on behalf of Davey and this will be his 11th oral argument before the high court. The case is Locke v. Davey.

The American Center for Law and Justice is an international public interest law firm specializing in constitutional law and based in Washington, D.C.