Fw: #7-1: A few notes from Virginia Knowles
Posted by: homenews <homenews@...>
Researching college scholarships has taken a lot of my time lately, so I took an interest in the Supreme Courts recent ruling in the case Locke v. Davey. Wednesday's ruling, which permits individual states to deny scholarships to theology students, is lauded for checking unhealthy ties between government and religion. The ruling supported Washington state's denial of a Promise Scholarship to former student Joshua Davey, reversing the decision of a Washington appeals court. The Supreme Courts opinion stated that because Majoring in devotional theology is akin to a religious calling, Washington could keep the restrictions on academic majors as part of its Promise Scholarship terms.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Courts ruling gives religious workers and their successors unequal footing as citizens with the rest of the populace. Apparently a student's excellent grades, high test scores, and middle class income are worth nothing if he or she wants to learn about God. Everybody cheers when low-income students get law or athletic scholarships, but the low-income student with lifelong ministry aspirations gets an apologetic tough luck. Changing these circumstances would grant theology students not special favors, but simply equal status.
Defenders of the ruling cite the establishment clause of the first amendment as support for this discrimination. But that's interpreting the clause incorrectly. Applied here, the establishment clause guards against subsidizing only religious education, not against singling out this educational choice for exclusion. The use of government funds is a legitimate concern, but its nonsense to equate scholarships for theology students with dooming America to the shackles of a theocracy.
I will apply for a Florida Bright Futures scholarship in the next school year, and I'm glad, after all the taxes my parents have paid, that I'm getting a fair shot at the money. I hope Florida never implements a system in which students who are smarter and poorer than me don't get this same chance simply because they want to major in theology. The ruling in Locke v. Davey could forseeably cause this to happen, and all the talk about separation of church and state wouldn't make the injustice any less maddening.