Judge strikes down Minnesota law barring certain religious schools from PSEO program 

A controversial Minnesota law that sought to bar certain religious institutions from participating in the state’s Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Friday.

The PSEO program allows high school students to earn college credits for free. The law in question was passed in 2023 by the DFL-controlled legislature and prohibited religious colleges from requiring on-campus PSEO students to sign a faith statement attesting to the institution’s beliefs and values. It also forbade 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.”

The law was immediately challenged in court by Crown College and the University of Northwestern-St. Paul, along with concerned parents, who were represented by the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty.

“In the last six years, the Supreme Court has three times held that once a state opens funding to private institutions, the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause forbids excluding participants based on their religion or their religious use of the funds,” they said in their lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel agreed with the plaintiffs, and on Friday she struck down the law “in its entirety as facially unconstitutional.”

“If the Schools’ eligibility to participate in PSEO is conditioned on not using faith statements as an admissions requirement, their free exercise in maintaining a campus community of like‐minded believers is burdened,” Brasel wrote.

“In sum, the Faith Statement Ban is unconstitutional on its face under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution because it burdens religious exercise, is not neutral and generally applicable, and is not narrowly tailored to achieve [Minnesota Department of Education’s] compelling interest,” she continued.

Republican leaders in the Minnesota House celebrated the court ruling and said they repeatedly warned their Democratic colleagues that the law would be struck down.

“Two years ago the Democrat trifecta vindictively attempted to block religious institutions from participating in PSEO programs which would have been devastating for students and damaging for Minnesota’s faith-based universities,” House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, and Floor Leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, said in a joint statement.

“Today’s ruling is a win for religious liberty, and an important reminder that discrimination based on religion is unconstitutional,” they continued. “This is yet another case where the courts have reined in the laws passed by Democrats and signed by Governor Walz — clearly, they should have listened to our repeated warnings and saved the state from the substantial legal costs brought on by their reckless and unconstitutional legislation.”

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