Knippenberg on CCU v. Weaver
Joseph M. Knippenberg, Professor of Politics at Oglethorpe University, has this essay at First Things:
In an important decision handed down last week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rebuked Colorado for its handling of a number of state scholarships programs. The court found that the state unconstitutionally discriminated against students attending Colorado Christian University (CCU) and Naropa University, denying them aid because they were allegedly “pervasively sectarian” institutions.
The programs at issue were created by the state in the early 1980s in an effort to conform to the then-prevailing Supreme Court First Amendment doctrine. Colorado lawmakers wanted their scholarship programs to be as inclusive as they thought the separationist Burger Court would permit and so attempted to distinguish between merely “sectarian” universities, like the Jesuit-run Regis University and the Methodist-affiliated University of Denver, and “pervasively sectarian” places, like the nondenominational evangelical CCU and Buddhist Naropa.
Opinion here.