Minnesota High School Students and Religious Colleges

 The U.S. is well known for having a long tradition of religious freedom. However, religious freedom is a constantly negotiated concept. To see an example of this, consider the following that just happened in the state of Minnesota, which you can read about here.

High school students sometimes take college courses for credit, and in some states in the U.S., the state will reimburse the college for the cost of the high school student taking the class. This is a way for the state to encourage students to take college courses.

In 2023, a statute was passed in the state of Minnesota so that if a religious college required a student to submit a “faith statement,” then that college could no longer participate in this program. The argument for the statute was that the faith statement is a way for a college to unfairly discriminate against (non-religious) students who will not agree to abide by the values of the religious school. This statute shifted the incentives for high-school students in Minnesota, increasing the incentive to go to non-religious colleges by effectively removing the option to attend the religious colleges. Some parents sued the state, arguing that this statute violated their religious freedom, and a state judge ruled in these parents' favor last Friday, thus striking down the statute for now (the case will be appealed).

There are always some subtle legal matters in cases like this, and the key one here is the question of whether the law poses a burden on the free exercise of religion. The free exercise of religion is a constitutionally protected right in the U.S., and constitutional law has developed such that a law is only allowed to limit some form of religious activity if it does not impose too high a burden on the religious person and that the law applies generally so that it is not specifically targeting the religious person. The judge ruled in this case that the law did not meet these standards.

This development is a great example of how religious liberty is not always a clear-cut concept. Just what is allowed as religious behavior and what is not must be continually worked out by different individuals and organizations, often with a big role played by the legal system. This case also illustrates how individual incentives depend on the "rules of the game," because the statute influenced the behavior of high school students.