A case of faith and college aid

Under Washington's Promise Scholarship program, grants are awarded for a student's first two years of study based on three criterion: high school class rank, family income, and attendance at an in-state institution. Davey qualified. But a state law and a state constitutional provision created a fourth criteria for him: "No aid shall be awarded to a student who is pursuing a degree in theology."

Davey and his supporters say use of the scholarship for religious teaching does not implicate constitutional prohibitions because the money would only be spent for religious purposes as a result of Davey's personal choice, not the choice of the government. In 2002, the US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of school vouchers under the same reasoning.

"Here we are clearly in the mode of individual choice," says Richard Komer of the Institute for Justice in Washington, D.C. "These programs empower people to make choices. The government isn't choosing the grantees here. It is letting the beneficiaries use the money where they want."

Mr. Komer says the state offers choice except when the scholarship recipient seeks to study religion. "Washington is trying to steer their residents' choices: You can choose anything except religion taught from a religious perspective," he says.

But others say Washington as a sovereign state has the flexibility under its own constitution to adopt a more restrictive approach. "Within the range of acceptable options, there is nothing wrong with letting states pursue their own visions of religious freedom," says Mr. Caplan.

He adds in a friend-of-the-court brief that the Washington program is within the bounds of what is constitutionally acceptable. "It does not compel [Davey] to do anything that his religion prohibits or prohibit anything that his religion compels," Caplan writes.

Kenneth Starr filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Davey on behalf of the Fairness Foundation, a philanthropic organization. He says the Washington provision violates the high court's mandate of "evenhandedness" in church-state relations. "The irony of Washington State's discrimination-infected legal structure is this: devotees of Marxism may use Promise Scholarships to pursue degrees in accredited departments that school students in the idea that 'religion is the opiate of the masses,' " Mr. Starr writes. "Under current law, Promise Scholarships may be used to study religion from a standpoint of agnosticism, skepticism, condescension, or hostility. In fact, Promise Scholarships may be used for the study of religion from every conceivable standpoint, except the most traditional, commonplace standpoint down through the ages - the standpoint of faith."

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