In a surprising (to me) decision, the Supreme Court has decided that it's perfectly acceptable for states to discriminate against religious minorities by witholding scholarship funds from religious students that are otherwise available to everyone else.
The court's 7-2 ruling held that the state of Washington was within its rights to deny a taxpayer-funded scholarship to a college student who was studying to be a minister. That holding applies even when money is available to students studying anything else.So I assume a state would be allowed to deny scholarships based on race or gender also, right? Or at least to people who plan on majoring in racial or gender studies?
The First Amendment should be construed so as to prevent the government from taking any notice of a person's religion, and should prevent religion from being the basis for any government decision. That means that just the government should not favor the religious above the secular, it should not deny benefits to the religious that it provides to the secular.
I don't think taxpayer money should pay for the training of ministers. You really want to help pay for the cost of training Islamic clerics?
As long as we are on the subject, I don't want taxpayer money to pay for the schooling of anyone. That is why I support the seperation of school and state.
Denying scholarships by race definitely wouldn't fly, and doing so by sex probably wouldn't, either. However, denying them to those who major in racial or gender studies probably would. Here's a quote from p. 4 of Justice Scalia's dissent:
Xrlq: Aha, ok. The silliness of which goes to illustrate Phelps' point.