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Four Christian students in Virginia have asked the Supreme Court to overturn a 22-year-old decision they say was wrongly decided because it unconstitutionally cuts off state aid to students who major in religious ministry or devotional theology.
The two sibling appeals, filed in mid-August, target the 2004 decision Locke v. Davey, in which the court held that the free exercise clause allows states to exclude otherwise qualified students from generally available tuition assistance programs because they pursue certain religious degrees.
The appeals represent four Liberty University students denied access to the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant, which “is designed to assist Virginia residents who attend accredited private, nonprofit colleges and universities in Virginia for [purposes] other than religious training or theological education,” according to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
“Religious students must choose whether to pursue only government-preferred degrees or forfeit their participation in generally available scholarship programs,” states one appeal, Hall v. Fleming.
The other, Johnson v. Fleming, argues “Locke was wrong.” Barring that decision, court rulings have “always barred religious discrimination in generally available public benefit programs.”
In an unusual legal turn, one of the attorneys arguing for the decision to be struck down is Josh Davey, who was the plaintiff in the original case and now a co-counsel for the Johnson appeal.
“Twenty-two years ago, the Supreme Court’s decision allowed states to single out students like me because our course of study related to our religious calling,” Davey said in a news release. “I am hopeful that the Court will correct that decision and treat students like Bethany [Hall] equally.”
Jeremy Dys, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, told The College Fix via email that “Students like Bethany seek nothing more than equal treatment, the right to direct her scholarship to her chosen course of study, which every student receiving the VTAG is entitled to, unless that course of study is religious.”
Hall was originally a music education major and was eligible to receive $5,000 per semester from the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant program. When she changed her major to “youth ministries” and subsequently to “music & worship,” her grant was revoked.
Lee Andes, director of finance, policy, and innovation at the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, told The College Fix that the grant “is available to students based on their official declared degree program for the term in which they receive the award.”
He said via email that if the major is switched mid-term, it is possible to have the VTAG award rescinded for that term. After a student switches “from eligible to ineligible, they are not required to repay VTAG” for previous semesters, Andes told The Fix.
Andes cited two laws that exclude religious ministry programs from receiving state funding, including the Code of Virginia and Article VIII of the Constitution of Virginia.
“Since the law does not specify which individual programs are religious training or theological education, SCHEV relies on the institution’s Classification on Instructional Programs (CIP) codes for guidance,” Andes said.
Religious programs are put into two designated categories: philosophy and religious studies majors, which are eligible for the grant, and theology and religious vocations majors, which are not. The Johnson appeal argues the two categories are arbitrary, capricious and nonsensical.
The two majors “are both inherently religious,” it states.
“Yet VTAG includes the former, which is supposedly more concerned with ‘systems of belief’ and ‘academic study,’ while excluding the latter, which is allegedly focused on specific ‘theolog[ies]’ and ‘religious vocations.'”
Dys told The Fix that “Singling out students simply because of their choice of religious study is, in fact, targeted religious discrimination, and as the Supreme Court has said in a similar context, ‘odious to our Constitution.'”
“As long as all other criteria for a scholarship are met … students choosing a religious field of study should be treated the same as all other fields of study,” he said. “We hope the Supreme Court takes this case and ends 22-years of discrimination.”
The plaintiffs in the Johnson appeal are Cameron Johnson and Luke Thomas, both Liberty University students, and Trace Stevens, a grad student at Liberty and 2nd Lieutenant in the Virginia Army National Guard who is challenging the Virginia Department of Military Affairs’ similar unconstitutional policy, according to Alliance Defending Freedom.
“Johnson, a 2025 high school graduate who majors in pastoral leadership at Liberty, was denied a VTAG award for his freshman year because of his chosen major. Likewise, Thomas plans on majoring in music and worship at Liberty, but that major is ineligible for VTAG for the same reason,” stated ADF in a news release.
“Stevens graduated with a degree in religion last summer and is currently in a Master of Divinity program. His religion major was eligible for the VTAG award, but the Department of Military Affairs still denied him a National Guard Grant because, in the department’s view, that program is too religious,” it added. “And although he is working to become a chaplain in the guard, the department refuses to give him a grant for the master’s degree that he needs to attain that position.”
In April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit denied Hall’s claim, citing Locke and concluding that “in the absence of any statement from the Supreme Court questioning or rejecting Locke’s holding, it is still the law.”
A similar lower-level decision was rendered in Johnson, which now asks the Supreme Court to bypass the 4th Circuit since it will likely render a similar decision as it did in Hall.
The Johnson decision pointed out that the tuition assistance is given to students attending religious universities or taking religious courses, so long as the state funding does not go toward religious training or devotional majors.
“Plaintiffs argue that relatively new cases in the Supreme Court’s religious freedom jurisprudence suggest that the legal landscape has sufficiently changed such that plaintiffs’ claims are now viable despite Locke,” the ruling stated.
“The court need not analyze every religious freedom case raised by plaintiffs to conclude that Locke is good law that renders the VTAG program constitutional.”
The Liberty University website states the “Music & Worship” degree that Hall is pursuing helps students “develop your musical skills and become a biblically grounded worship leader.”
Ten potential careers listed on the website include director of worship conferences, music minister, director of worship arts, and associate director of worship programming. Only one of the potential careers listed (contemporary Christian artist) appears to not be traditional religious training, which is what the grant excludes.
The career list underscores the core dispute: while Virginia views these outcomes as excluded vocational ministry training, the plaintiffs argue that picking a faith-focused career shouldn’t disqualify a student from standard state education grants.
MORE: Three Liberty University students sue Virginia for excluding them from scholarship program
