WASHINGTON – Attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom and the National Legal Foundation asked the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday to hear the case of three Virginia college students who were excluded from educational grants worth thousands of dollars per year based solely on their chosen religious degrees, even though Virginia funds other near-identical religious degrees.
Cameron Johnson and Luke Thomas are Liberty University students challenging the unconstitutional policy of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia that denies tuition grants for programs that commonwealth officials deem “too religious.” Trace Stevens, a graduate student at Liberty and a 2nd Lieutenant in the Virginia Army National Guard, is challenging the Virginia Department of Military Affairs’ similar unconstitutional policy.
ADF attorneys are asking the high court to uphold the students’ First Amendment freedoms after a federal district court ruled against them based on a 2004 Supreme Court decision, Locke v. Davey. Additionally, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has yet to stop Virginia’s religious discrimination, recently rejecting a similar challenge in Hall v. Fleming and refusing to stop Virginia’s unconstitutional conduct while Johnson, Thomas, and Stevens’ appeal unfolds.
“The government can’t deny publicly available benefits because a student’s major is too religious. That’s religious discrimination. It’s wrong, and it’s unconstitutional,” said ADF Chief Legal Counsel Jim Campbell.
“This case is about far more than government grants—it’s about whether governments can treat people of faith as second class,” added Steve Fitschen of NLF. “We are urging the court to hear this case and ensure that religious students are treated equally.”
“Time is of the essence. Petitioners pay thousands more for their education each year because of their religious exercise, losing ‘a public benefit for which [they are] otherwise qualified solely because’ of their faith. And beyond this ‘concrete harm,’ every day they suffer the ‘profound’ ‘indignity’ of enduring discriminatory exclusion for their faith,” the petition filed in Johnson v. Fleming explains.
The State Council administers the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant Program, and the Virginia Department of Military Affairs administers the National Guard Tuition Assistance Grant Program, both of which are generally available programs to Virginia college students. But both grant programs exclude students who select certain religious programs that the government deems ineligible.
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. 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. 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.
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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