DENVER — An evangelical Christian university has sued the Colorado Commission on Higher Education for denying its application to a college voucher program for in-state students.
The federal lawsuit filed last week by Colorado Christian University, a 1,600-student nondenominational school in Lakewood, accused the commission of violating the school’s constitutional rights.
State statutes from the 1970s bar “pervasively sectarian” institutions from state student aid money. The lawsuit points out that Denver’s Regis University, which is run by Jesuits, is eligible for state student aid.
“We filed this lawsuit in order to end religious discrimination in Colorado’s state student aid programs,” Colorado Christian president Larry Donnithorne said Dec. 9.
Colorado Christian asked last year to take part in the state’s College Opportunity Fund, student subsidies that will begin next year. The commission told the school on Nov. 4 that it had failed the “sectarian” test.
Jason Hopfer, director of government relations for the commission, said state law was followed. He declined to go into detail on why the school failed the test.
“This is a changing field of law at the federal level and an important issue for the courts to address,” he said. “We carefully reviewed with our attorney the application against current legal standards.”
Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund and Christian Legal Society filed the suit.
“The state should not be in the business of determining when religion is too religious,” ADF chief counsel Benjamin Bull said. “Religious colleges and universities are not second-class institutions simply because they are religious, and the students attending them are no less deserving of aid than students attending nonreligious schools.”
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year voted 7-2 in Locke v. Davey to uphold a Washington state program that denies scholarship money to students studying theology.
That decision suggests states have wide latitude in setting their own constitutional boundaries, said Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The Colorado Constitution, forbids appropriations “to any denominational or sectarian institution or association.”