State wrong to revoke theology student’s scholarship

Prior to his 2003 graduation, Joshua Davey could be considered a typical college student, with… Prior to his 2003 graduation, Joshua Davey could be considered a typical college student, with two notable exceptions – he’s smarter than most of us, and more determined. Plus, he is the momentum behind a lawsuit that appeared before the Supreme Court this week and added another dimension to the nation’s multi-faceted discussion of church and state.

Davey’s case – arguing that government scholarship money cannot be denied simply because an applicant pursues a religious degree – is specific enough to duck headlines but significant enough to raise eyebrows. It’s inspiring, not only because of its value as a legal precedent, but also because it’s the story of a college student challenging a government that has overstepped its bounds.

After graduating high school with impressive numbers in 1999, Davey was awarded a Promise Scholarship, part of Washington State’s financial aid program. Everything seemed fine, even when he decided to use the funding to attend Northwest College, a Christian school on Seattle’s east side.

But when Davey declared his major in Theology, the state responded by stripping him of his scholarship, citing a Washington statute that prohibits state money from funding religious degrees.

Davey filed suit to have the law changed, and the Ninth United States Circuit Court of Appeals – the same court that declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of its reference to God – ruled in his favor. Governor Gary Locke and the Washington State Attorney General’s Office then petitioned the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear arguments and scheduled the proceedings, which occurred Dec. 2.

It confuses me that Governor Locke has pushed this case all the way to the nation’s highest court. Why fight so vigorously to keep an $1,100 aid package from falling into the hands of an exceptional student simply because he’s an active Christian who wants to study the faith in college?

Of course, the answer is “separation of church and state,” but this is just another instance of the catchall motto becoming a little too stretched.

Keeping church and government separate is necessary because the church needs to be protected from the influence of the state as much as the state from the church. But while the separation is noble on the grand scale, it also allows for a lot of legal nitpicking.

Again and again, this issue fills courtrooms with arguments about statues and nativity scenes and holiday political correctness – issues that could easily be resolved with a little levelheaded thinking and a town meeting or two. If Washington state decides to give Joshua Davey a scholarship, how he uses it is his business.

The idea that awarding state funding to a theology student is somehow a government endorsement of religion is flimsy at best. In addition to providing people with guidance, counseling, charity and fellowship on a personal level, ministers and religious scholars also hold incredible cultural significance.

Would Washington be ashamed if it helped Davey become the next Billy Graham, D.L. Moody, William Wilberforce or William Booth? If not, would it be ashamed to help an intelligent student with a fixed income study a subject that interests him? Apparently so.

The relatively small allowance that the Promise Scholarship would have given Davey has never been central to the suit, and it is especially irrelevant now that he has graduated with high honors from Northwest College and is in his first year at Harvard Law School. The money would have been nice to have, much like the support of his home state.

But now that Joshua Davey has proven his intelligence at the collegiate level and continues to do so in grad school, Governor Locke’s case will be discredited, win or lose. Locke had a chance to support a brilliant young man. Instead, he will be remembered for his efforts to hold a brilliant young man back.

Dr. Don Argue, president of Northwest College, put it best: “I guess this proves that Governor Locke was right all along. Joshua is a student with a great deal of promise.”

Eric Miller can be reached at save101@hotmail.com.