Loe v. Jett, (D MN, Aug. 22, 2025), is a challenge to a 2023 Amendment to Minnesota's Post Secondary Education Option (PSEO) statute. The statute allows high school students to enroll in nonsectarian college courses in colleges in the state. The state reimburses colleges for the credits earned by high schoolers. The challenged amendment disqualifies colleges that require faith statements from PSEO students, or which discriminate in admission of PSEO students on the basis of race, creed, ethnicity, disability, gender, or sexual orientation or religious beliefs or affiliations. The court held that the Faith Statement ban violates the 1st Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, saying in part:
[University of] Northwestern requires PSEO applicants to agree to a Declaration of Christian Community, by which applicants attest to “honor Christ,” “seek Christ‐centered community,” and “stand together against all that the Bible clearly condemns.”... Such an admissions requirement is facially proscribed by the Faith Statement Ban. Now, consider a hypothetical secular private college that participates in the PSEO program. If that secular school required that all PSEO applicants attest to “honor reason,” “seek reason‐centered community,” and “stand together against all that rationalism clearly condemns,” such an admissions requirement would seemingly not be proscribed by the Faith Statement Ban.
The only difference between the two statement requirements is that Northwestern’s is of a religious—and not a secular—nature. Such a distinction on the face of the Faith Statement Ban is not neutral to religion, and thus triggers strict scrutiny....
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 MDE’s compelling interest. Necessarily, this means that the Faith Statement Ban is also unconstitutional under the Freedom of Conscience Clause of Article One, Section Sixteen of the Minnesota Constitution. ...
The court also held that the Amendment's nondiscrimination provision is inseparable from the Statement Ban, so that it too must be struck down. It also rejected the Department of Education's counterclaims against the religious schools that were among the plaintiffs.
MPR News reports on the decision. [Thanks to Scott Mange for the lead.]
