By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter
A federal judge has struck down restrictions preventing the participation of faith-based colleges in a dual enrollment program in Minnesota as unconstitutional, allowing high school students to receive college credit at such institutions of higher education for work completed in high school.
In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Brasel sided with Minnesota parents seeking to allow their children to obtain postsecondary education credits at faith-based institutions of higher education as well as Christian colleges in the state.
The lawsuit challenged amendments to the decades-old law establishing the Postsecondary Enrollment Options program, passed in 2023, clarifying that eligible institutions “must not require a faith statement from a secondary student seeking to enroll in a postsecondary course under this section during the application process.”
The amendments also prohibit schools from basing “any part of the admission decision on a student’s race, creed, ethnicity, disability, gender, or sexual orientation or religious beliefs or affiliations.”
Brasel, a Trump appointee, said the 2023 amendments violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Freedom of Conscience Clause of the Minnesota Constitution. Her ruling ordered the amendments to be completely stricken from Minnesota state law.
“The Faith Statement Ban is inseverable from the Nondiscrimination Requirement, and so the Amendment must be stricken in its entirety,” Brasel wrote. “As for MDE’s counterclaims, MDE lacks standing to assert its constitutional counterclaims, and its statutory counterclaim fails on the merits under the [Minnesota Human Rights Act].”