January 27, 2003
RIDDLE US THIS:
Religion Major to Get State Scholarship (AP, Jan 24, 2003)The decision followed a federal lawsuit filed in December by the American Center for Law and Justice on behalf of Michael Woods Nash. The center, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, agreed to drop the suit following the revision.
The center sued after the Cumberland College junior learned in October that he would lose his scholarship funding because he had declared philosophy and religion as his major.
How, precisely, did we get from here, First Amendment (United States Constitution)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
to here, FAQ (Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship)
Governor Paul E. Patton and the 1998 General Assembly provided Kentucky high school students a great opportunity to make their education pay with the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES)! KEES is administered by the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority (KHEAA). Students who try to get the most from high school by studying hard and making good grades (2.5 GPA or higher) can earn scholarships for college or technical school. The better students do in high school, the more they will earn toward college scholarships. And students who complete their college studies have a better opportunity to achieve their career goals and improve their standard of living. Education really does pay![Q:] Can I use my KEES award if I plan to major in a religious program of study?
[A:] No. KEES awards cannot be used for programs of study that lead to a degree in theology, divinity, or religious education.
MORE:
Kentucky Constitution, Section 1
Kentucky Constitution, Section 5
A sticky wicket, indeed.
Even an atheist can study religion, but should an atheist pay for a believer to study?
No, obviously not.
The one thing I still agree with from my 14 years
Catholic schooling is that religion should pay its own way. Call me reactionary.
In Witters v. Washington Dept. of Services for the Blind
, 474 U.S. 481 (1986), a unanimous Supreme Court rejected the notion that allowing students to use state scholarships constitutes an impermissible establishment of religion.
It seems to me that the KY Dept. of Education was employing an attorney who spent more time reading the op-ed side of the newspaper than he or she did on the law books.
This was an easy call and they missed it.
To take it a little bit further, not only is there no prohibition against funding religious studies on the same terms as other courses of study, but the state is probably constitutionally prohibited from excluding religous studies from benefits available for other fields of study.
Posted by: David Cohen at January 27, 2003 2:28 PMJust another day in Frankfort. As a native Kentuckian I can assure you that the state Dept. of Education misses the boat on a variety of issues.
Posted by: Bart Rhodes at January 27, 2003 2:34 PMOJ:
As an atheist, I am not particularly bothered by a scholarship for someone choosing to study religion, just as long as there are no limits as to what religion(s) the student may study.
[Q:] Would it be OK with you if the student were to use the scholarship to study atheism? I know this is a hypothetical...
Respectfully,
Jeff Guinn
Jeff:
Suppose there was such a thing. Or suppose they took all Science Courses. Or all courses in Existential Literature. Suppose they major in Greek and take Greek Civ and Myth? I have no problem with any of that. Well, other than government giving them money in the first place...
What if they were not merely studying
the subject as a field of intellectual
interest but were preparing for ordination?
Are taxpayers now to pay for the
training of priests?
Harry:
Why not? How would funding the training of every theologian in the country, in the course of funding the training of every other occupation in the country, tend to establish a religion?
OJ:
It seems we agree, I just wanted to make sure. As long as the funding comes without limits, I don't, in general, see any problem. However, since (so far as I know) there are no college programs that specialize in atheism as a form of religious belief, then scholarship funding tends to establish theistic belief at the expense of atheistic belief.
But I am willing to go along with that, since the First Amendment seems to be doing a pretty good job of preventing theocratic zealots from deciding they are God of me.
Sincerely,
Jeff Guinn
Jeff:
To be argumentative, I'd say that almost all college proograms preach atheism at this point. :)
OJ:
As a generalization, that can't possibly be true. To most areas--economics, engineering, computer science--religious belief is no more germain than yesterday's weather.
In others, probably philosophy in particular, and possibly art & music, that may very well not be the case. But my intellectual limitations caused me to develop an aversion to Philosophy classes early on, so I really can't say.
Respectfully,
Jeff Guinn
How would funding theologians (and I said priests, not
theologians, but perhaps that's a quibble) tend to
establish religion?
Well, why are there so few Christadelphians?
Because they don't pay their preachers.
Jeff:
Watch the first episode of The Decalogue and tell me engineers shouldn't learn religion.