Atheists to court: It's okay to ban "faith statements" in taxpayer-funded Minnesota program

A provision in Minnesota's budget singled out colleges forcing high school students to sign an anti-LGBTQ "faith statement"

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A lawsuit meant to erode the wall of separation between church and state in Minnesota is still going through the courts, and an atheist group is making its own arguments to the court for why that separation must be maintained.

This all concerns a small provision tucked away in a $72 billion two-year budget signed into law in May of 2023 by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, long before he was the vice presidential candidate. The provision regarded the state’s PSEO program.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signs the new budget into law (screenshot via YouTube)

Since 1985, the Postsecondary Enrollment Options Act (which created the PSEO program) has allowed high school students to take college-level classes taught by college professors (online or in-person) and get credit for them. (It’s similar to the privately-run Advanced Placement program.)

Students enrolled in PSEO classes have their tuition, books, and fees covered by the institutions—which are reimbursed by the state—and they’re expected to do college-level work. They’re also expected to “meet the admissions standards” of whatever school is offering the classes. If they earn a good grade, it counts as college credit.

These programs are ideal for high-achieving students looking to save tuition dollars at a state university—or students curious to know what the rigor of a college course is like. It’s also a way for students who might not be able to afford a two- or four-year post-secondary education to get a head start with some free classes.

An article in the Mankato Free Press last year quoted one Minnesota State University graduate saying “he’s saved $20,000 by having taken nearly 80 PSEO credits” and that, when you include scholarship money, “his college degree has cost him very little.” That’s how powerful this program can be for students who take advantage of it.

In 2020 alone, 10,463 students took 170,117 credits of classes, and the state paid out just over $36 million in reimbursements to the participating colleges and universities.

So why did lawmakers make a change to the program?

It had everything to do with church/state separation.

The provision in the state budget simply said that any colleges participating in PSEO could not require students to sign a faith statement as a requirement for admission.

To put that another way, a private Christian college could still participate in PSEO and offer classes to high school students… but that school couldn’t make participating students say they agreed with the specific religious requirements of the college. (Some Christian schools require students to say they oppose same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and the idea that transgender people exist.)

The law also said religious schools couldn’t reject a participating high school student because that student was gay or trans or an atheist—even if those students wouldn’t be allowed to attend those colleges because of that.

This wasn’t an attack on religious institutions. It was a way to make sure the state wasn’t handing over taxpayer dollars to schools that were imposing their religious beliefs on high school students. (For anyone curious, the PSEO program does not allow any courses that are “sectarian in nature.” But religious schools can still offer secular courses.)

But because Christian institutions always see themselves as victims, two of them sued the state over the change.

The University of Northwestern–St. Paul and Crown College, both of which are conservative Christian schools, said in the lawsuit that the new provision was unconstitutional:

Today, Minnesota governor Tim Walz signed a bill into law that amends the law governing PSEO to exclude religious schools like Northwestern and Crown from participating because they require a statement of faith from those students who chose to attend their on-campus programs. The statements simply ask students to affirm the schools’ religious beliefs for the purpose of upholding their Christian communities. Other schools are free to create the campus environment they want to attract students with shared values and interests.  Minnesota’s sudden change to the law hurts students who want to attend schools that uphold their religious values–schools that have attracted thousands of Minnesota high school students over the past three and a half decades.  

The argument they made was that if Minnesota was offering a program that applied to all institutions of higher learning that wanted to participate, they couldn’t exclude some just because they required students to affirm their Christianity (and openly declare their anti-LGBTQ bigotry).

At Crown College, for example, the Statement of Faith specifically bans “all sexual relations outside the bounds of marriage between a man and a woman,” which means openly gay students who are, or hope to one day be, in a relationship could not gain acceptance.

The University of Northwestern - Saint Paul is even more straightforward: Marriage is “between one man and one woman” and “same sex romantic intimacy and/or sexual relations” is forbidden.

Both schools say in the lawsuit that their Statements of Faith only apply to students taking classes on campus, not those taking classes online. But that still means high school students taking an ostensibly secular course like “Beginning Chinese I” as an on-site PSEO would have to agree to the sex rules. That’s what the state was objecting to with the budget provision.

The (right-wing) legal group Becket, which is representing the schools, said rather bluntly that the law was on their side: “The Supreme Court has consistently and recently affirmed that public benefits that are open to private secular organizations must also be open to religious ones.“

The lawsuit even suggested the lawmakers were anti-religious:

Indeed, during meetings of the Senate Committee on Education Policy, members of the committee stated clearly their intent to exclude religious schools from receiving public dollars.

The problem with that logic was that religious schools were still eligible to participate in PSEO! No one pushed them out! There were several faith-based colleges in Minnesota that weren’t suing over the budget because they had no plans to discriminate against students who didn’t fall in lock-step with their beliefs.

There were only two schools that had an anti-LGBTQ Statement of Faith that they wanted students to sign—and it was the two suing the state.

When the lawsuit was filed, the Secular Government Caucus in Minnesota—headed up by Rep. Mike Freiberg, Rep. Athena Hollins, Sen. Jen McEwen, and Sen. John Marty—released a statement echoing that very point:

The state is not restricting these schools from practicing their religious beliefs in any manner. It is merely prohibiting them from using state PSEO dollars to exclude high school students based on a student's race, creed, ethnicity, disability, gender, or sexual orientation or religious beliefs or affiliations. 

Most of the religiously affiliated colleges that participate in the PSEO program have not excluded PSEO students, and they are not involved in this lawsuit. They recognize that the public funding requires them to treat students equally. 

Ironically, the schools bringing this lawsuit are the colleges who have excluded PSEO students based on religion. Their required faith statements have excluded high school students from participating in the publicly funded PSEO program, and they will no longer be allowed to continue. Religious freedom guarantees all people the right to believe and practice any faith or none at all, and institutions participating in this program must abide by that.

Simply put, there was nothing anti-Christian about the PSEO provision in the state budget. Christian schools that wanted to participate in the program could still do so, under the same rules as everyone else. Christian schools that wanted to discriminate against students who didn’t agree with their beliefs about sexuality could not.

It was up to them whether or not a religious litmus test mattered more than government funding, but they didn’t deserve to have it both ways.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has now filed an amicus brief in the case urging the court to side with the state. (They’re not directly involved in the case, but they have a vested interest in the outcome.) FFRF attorney Patrick Elliott makes two key points in his brief.

First, FFRF says that the Minnesota law was neutral when it applied those non-discrimination conditions on funding PSEO. They weren’t targeting Christian schools:

Minnesota’s amendment… does not reflect an organized and malicious effort to target religious schools; but rather, reflects the principle that students should have equal access in pursuing educational opportunities… As the amendment prohibits discriminatory conduct for all schools interested in hosting PSEO programs, regardless of belief system, the rules are neutral and generally applicable.

Second, FFRF argues that the state has a “significant interest” in not funding and perpetuating discrimination in publicly funded programs:

Government funds should not be used to demand adherence to identities and religious beliefs from students who have valid personal reasons to apply for an institution's secular PSEO program—such as proximity to their primary school, transportation, unique course offerings, specific faculty, or seeking co-enrollment with peers—but who do not share the institution's underlying religious beliefs.

Further, [the provision] prohibits all participating schools from basing admissions to a PSEO program on the basis of a student's race, creed, ethnicity, disability, gender, or sexual orientation or religious beliefs or affiliations, regardless of the school’s reasoning for discrimination. There is no mechanism for individualized exceptions, strengthening the State’s blanket equality interest.

Christian schools can’t have it both ways. They have to agree to the state’s rules or they can choose not to participate in the program. There’s no Jesus Exception in state law for bigots who want access to taxpayer dollars.

Here’s hoping the judge feels the same way.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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