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A private religious college in Georgia is the latest site of ongoing legal battles over taxpayer funds flowing to parochial institutions.
Luther Rice College and Seminary sued the Georgia Student Finance Commission and Georgia Student Finance Authority earlier this month, accusing the agencies of discriminating against by the college by prohibiting its students from accessing state financial aid.
The complaint takes issue with Georgia officials preventing the private religious college from participating in their public tuition assistance programs because “most of [Luther Rice’s] offerings [are] religious based and non-religious degrees [are] substantially intertwined with the school’s religious mission,” The Christian Post reported Monday.
“Because of that exclusion, no Luther Rice student can receive Georgia student aid for any undergraduate degree or course, not even for a course or degree in the school’s general studies or psychology programs. And no Georgia high school student can receive dual credit at Luther Rice,” said the suit.
It further claims that Luther Rice, which is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, is “the only excluded nonprofit school” in Georgia.
Andrea Dill, a lawyer for the religious liberty legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, who is representing Luther Rice, told The Christian Post that she believes the Constitution protects the college and its seminary.
“The U.S. Constitution does not prevent the state from including religious organizations in state funding programs,” Dill said. “To the contrary, the Constitution prohibits the state from excluding religious organizations from otherwise available public benefits solely because of their religious character or exercise.”
While the First Amendment protects the separation of church and state, it also includes a free exercise clause, which “protects citizens’ right to practice their religion as they please, so long as the practice does not run afoul of a ‘public morals’ or a ‘compelling’ governmental interest," according to a U.S. Courts webpage.
The Supreme Court has cited the latter in decisions upholding religious schools’ right to access taxpayer funds in multiple rulings over the past several years, including Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer in 2017, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue in 2020 and Carson v. Makin in 2022.
