A law firm weblog has this informative writeup on the oral argument at the Supreme Court on the Locke v. Davey case. At issue in the case is whether the State of Washington, under the religious exclusion clause of its state constitution, can withhold general scholarship funds from a college student who merely declares a theology major. Joshua Davey, the student, argues this violates his federal free exercise rights granted under the United States Constitution. Dueling constitutions. A district court earlier ruled in favor of Washington State, then the 9th Circuit reversed in favor of Mr. Davey. Like most Free Exercise cases, the facts are rather odd: The state applying a religious clause against not a church but a college student? The religious activity that triggers the scholarship cutoff is just selecting a major, not spreading religious pamphlets or preaching Jesus in the cafeteria? What's silly is this turns simply on a declared major, when everyone knows that ANY STUDENT in ANY OTHER MAJOR could take theology classes as part of their schedule and not be penalized. And Mr. Davey himself could end up changing his major to computer science and starting a dot com by the time he graduates. I mean, who graduates in the first major they declare anyway? Besides, many theology students end up thinking more like philosophy graduates and criticizing institutional religion, not supporting it. Theologians are generally no friend to popular (i.e., fundamentalist) religion. A state that wanted to ATTACK religion couldn't do much better than to subsidize theology majors. But the case isn't really about supporting religion, it's about the politics of supporting religion; Washington State just wants to keep its hands clean and untainted from the appearance of encouraging religion, even if that means picking on college students they ought to be encouraging.
In a final note of irony, the now-famous Mr. Davey actually graduated last spring and is now enrolled as a law student at Harvard Law School. How many Con Law students at Harvard will get to brief their own named case in class? How many graduating law students will be able to tell their potential employers that they helped brief an actual US Supreme Court case when they were a 1L? Theology has done a lot for Mr. Davey's career, it seems. Good for him. [SCOTUSblog]
11:04:22 PM 
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