Christian colleges in Minnesota will be allowed to keep offering college credits to high school students — for now. On Wednesday, the Minnesota District Court issued an injunction prohibiting the enforcement of an amendment that greenlights discrimination against religious students.
Under Minnesota’s 1985 Post Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program, capable students can earn free college credits at local institutions of higher education while they are still in high school. Thousands of students have benefited from the program, and other states around the country have since adopted it.
An amendment passed during the 2023 legislative session, however, removed religious colleges from the program by prohibiting these postsecondary schools from requiring a statement of faith from students. “An eligible institution must not require a faith statement from a secondary student seeking to enroll in a postsecondary course under this section during the application process or base any part of the admission decision on a student’s … religious beliefs or affiliations,” the amendment states.
The day the bill was signed in May, Becket Law, on behalf of two Christian homeschool families and two Christian colleges that had been part of the PSEO program, filed a federal suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota to make sure PSEO funds are available to Christian high schoolers for their preferred college, just as they are for everybody else. The complaint, which names the Minnesota governor, commissioner of education, and Department of Education as defendants, argued that “the amendment burdens Plaintiffs’
