A federal civil rights lawsuit is challenging the denial of state tuition assistance in Virginia to a National Guard member who is studying theology as a pathway to becoming a military chaplain. (Joshua Magbanua/U.S. Air Force)
WASHINGTON — A federal civil rights lawsuit is challenging the denial of state tuition assistance in Virginia to a National Guard member who is studying theology as a pathway to becoming a military chaplain.
Trace Stevens and two other university students pursuing religion or theology degrees are seeking to overturn a district court decision that allowed the state of Virginia to exclude them from specific state tuition grants because of their field of study, according to the lawsuit.
Stevens, Cameron Johnson and Luke Thomas, who are enrolled at Liberty University, a private evangelical Christian school in Lynchburg, Va., have appealed their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., after the lower court allowed the state policy to stand.
A hearing is expected this year, according to their attorneys.
In Johnson v. Fleming, the students’ attorneys claimed that the state of Virginia violated the First and 14th amendments by disqualifying them from state tuition grants “solely for pursuing religious or theological degrees.”
The students were denied funds from the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant and the Virginia National Guard Tuition State Assistance Grant, according to the complaint.
Both grant programs exclude students who select certain ineligible religious programs, according to Alliance Defending Freedom, the law firm representing the students.
“Policies that treat religious students as second-class citizens have no place in our laws,” said attorney John Bursch.
Alliance Defending Freedom filed an appeal in April.
Stevens graduated from Liberty University with an undergraduate degree in religion and is enrolled in a Master of Divinity program with the goal of becoming a military chaplain.
Although his undergraduate religion major was approved for the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant, the Virginia Department of Military Affairs denied him a National Guard grant, attorneys said.
His current graduate program also was deemed ineligible, according to attorneys.
“Students can pursue myriad different secular programs and even some religious programs in college while remaining eligible for both the State Tuition Assistance and National Guard Grants,” according to the lawsuit. “But the one thing they cannot pursue are programs that government officials deem to be for religious training or theological education.”
Attorneys for Stevens said that the National Guard employs — and its members benefit from — individuals who train for and pursue posts as military chaplains.
The lawsuit names as defendants several Virginia state officials, including A. Scott Fleming, director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, and others representing the Virginia Department of Military Affairs.
A friend of the court brief was filed by retired Army chiefs of chaplains, in support of Stevens. The brief noted that chaplaincy is vital to supporting the Virginia National Guard’s longstanding mission.
“Yet despite maintaining the chaplaincy, paying chaplains, requiring chaplains’ theological education in overlapping ways, and subsidizing religious courses, the Virginia National Guard excludes service members — including chaplain candidates — from its tuition-assistance program if the degree they seek is deemed ‘religious training or theological education.’ Excluding religious participants from generally available public benefits is religious discrimination,” the brief said.
The federal government, however, has had no issue with Stevens’ course of study, according to the complaint.
He has received federal tuition assistance from the Army, according to court documents.
