ASHINGTON,
Feb. 25 — The Supreme Court ruled today, in a case watched by public
officials and educators across the country, that the states can withhold
public scholarship money from students pursuing religious studies.
The justices decided, 7 to 2, that Washington State had the right to deny
scholarship aid to a college student who was studying to be a minister.
The majority rejected arguments that the exclusion of divinity students
from the state's Promise Scholarship Program was an unconstitutional burden
on the free exercise of religion.
The program "imposes neither criminal nor civil sanctions on any type of
religious service or rite," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the
majority. "It does not deny to ministers the right to participate in the
political affairs of the community. And it does not require students to
choose between their religious beliefs and receiving a government benefit."
Rather, the chief justice wrote, "The state has merely chosen not to fund
a distinct category of instruction."
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the dissenters, found that
reasoning unpersuasive. "The indignity of being singled out for special
burdens on the basis of one's religious calling is so profound that the
concrete harm produced can never be dismissed as insubstantial," Justice
Scalia wrote.
"Let there be no doubt," Justice Scalia wrote at another point. "This
case is about discrimination against a religious minority."
The Washington State program awards scholarships on the basis of academic
merit and financial need to students who attended accredited colleges in the
state, including those with religious affiliations. But it excludes students
pursuing degrees in devotional theology.
The case was Locke v. Davey, No. 02-1315, after Gov. Gary Locke and
Joshua Davey, who studied religion at Northwest College, which is affiliated
with the Assemblies of God. He did not become a minister, deciding instead
to attend Harvard Law School.
As Chief Justice Rehnquist observed, two pillars of the United States
Constitution — the freedom of expression and the church-state separation
specified in the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment — are "frequently in tension."
"Yet we have long said that `there is room for play in the joints'
between them," he added.
Because 36 other states also forbid the public financing of religious
instruction, today's ruling had been eagerly awaited. The Bush
administration had entered the case on behalf of Mr. Davey.
When the case was argued on Dec. 2, a majority of justices expressed
concern about the implications of requiring states to subsidize religious
training if they choose to provide college scholarship money for other kinds
of study. Justice Stephen G. Breyer called the implications "breathtaking."
Today's ruling overturned a decision by the United States Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco.
The American Center for Law and Justice, a law firm founded by the
religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, said the ruling "clearly sanctions
religious discrimination."
"In this case, Josh Davey simply wanted to be treated equally on the same
terms and conditions as other scholarship recipients," the center's lawyer
Jay Sekulow, who argued the case at the Supreme Court, told The Associated
Press.
But the People for the American Way Foundation had an opposite reaction.
"We are very pleased by the court's decision," said Ralph G. Neas, president
of the organization. "No state should be compelled by the federal government
to fund religious instruction. Today, the Supreme Court reaffirmed this
principle and in the process, strengthened the foundation of religious
liberty."