A federal judge rejected an effort to overturn the gainful-employment rule, which was put in place during the Biden administration.
In an opinion issued Thursday, Judge Reed O’Connor from the Northern District of Texas sided with the Education Department on every point. One of the plaintiffs, a trade association representing cosmetology schools, had argued in its lawsuit that the regulations jeopardized the “very existence” of cosmetology schools and used flawed measures to determine whether graduates of career education programs are gainfully employed.
Under the rules, for-profit and nondegree programs have to prove that their graduates can afford their loan payments and earn more than a high school graduate. Those that fail the tests in two consecutive years could lose access to federal financial aid. The regulations also included new reporting requirements for all colleges under the financial value transparency framework.
The lawsuit started under the Biden administration, and Trump officials opted to defend the regulations in court and urged the judge to keep the rules in place.
Similar gainful-employment rules survived a legal challenge in 2014 but were ultimately scrapped by the first Trump administration. However, in recent years, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have become more interested in finding ways to hold colleges accountable for their students’ career outcomes. Under legislation that Congress passed this summer, most college programs will have to pass a similar earnings test. How the Education Department carries out that test will be subject to a rule-making process set to kick off later this year.
Jason Altmire, president and chief executive officer of Career Education Colleges and Universities, which represents the for-profit sector and opposed the Biden rule, said in a statement that he looks forward to revisiting the issue during the rule-making process.
“We are confident the Biden Gainful Employment Rule will be revised to incorporate a fairer accountability measure that will apply equally to all schools, ensuring all students can benefit,” he said. “We look forward to a full consideration of these issues during the months ahead.”
Dan Zibel, vice president of the legal advocacy group Student Defense, applauded the court ruling in a statement.
“Higher education is supposed to offer students a path to a better life, not a debt-filled dead end,” he said. “The 2023 Gainful Employment Rule reflects a common-sense policy to ensure that students are not wasting time and money on career programs that provide little value.”
A federal judge in Illinois has dismissed a lawsuit accusing the College Board and 40 highly selective private colleges and universities of conspiring in a price-fixing scheme to inflate tuition costs.
In a decision released last week, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis determined that the plaintiffs, a Boston University student and an alum of Cornell University, “have not plausibly alleged that Defendants entered into an agreement” demonstrating collusion on pricing.
The class action lawsuit, filed just shy of a year ago, alleged that the defendants overcharged tuition for students of divorced or separated parents by considering the financial information of the noncustodial parent, as well as the custodial one, in calculating financial aid awards. The plaintiffs claimed that the formula increased their tuition by an average of $6,200.
The lawsuit alleged that the price-fixing arrangement among the 40 institutions began in 2006, when the College Board began requiring both parents to submit financial information for its College Scholarship Service profiles, regardless of the student’’ custody arrangements. While last week’s decision acknowledged the practice inflated tuition prices at the institutions named, Ellis found no evidence that they had conspired.
“Nothing in Plaintiffs’ complaint suggests that the University Defendants exchanged their own internal financial aid decisionmaking processes or guidelines or otherwise shared with the other University Defendants the amount of financial aid they planned to offer a particular student,” she wrote. “Nor does the complaint allege that the University Defendants all agreed on the same exact formula for calculating financial aid based on the [noncustodial parent’s] financial information.”
In a scathing decision published Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that two federal agencies led a campaign to detain and deport international students and faculty for pro-Palestinian speech with the goal of chilling further protests, violating the First Amendment.
“There was no ideological deportation policy,” wrote senior U.S. District Judge William G. Young, a Reagan appointee, in the 161-page ruling. “It was never the Secretaries’ [Marco Rubio, of the Department of State, and Kristi Noem, of the Department of Homeland Security] immediate intention to deport all pro-Palestinian non-citizens for that obvious First Amendment violation, that could have raised a major outcry. Rather, the intent of the Secretaries was more invidious—to target a few for speaking out and then use the full rigor of the Immigration and Nationality Act (in ways it had never been used before) to have them publicly deported with the goal of tamping down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorizing similarly situated non-citizen (and other) pro-Palestinians into silence because their views were unwelcome.”
He also stated unequivocally that noncitizens in the U.S. have the same First Amendment rights as citizens—despite the Trump administration’s argument to the contrary during the trial.
The decision, which Young said may be the most important ever to fall within his district, comes about two months after the conclusion of a two-week trial in the case of American Association of University Professors v. Rubio, during which State Department and DHS employees explained that they had been tasked with identifying noncitizen pro-Palestinian activists to investigate and deport. Young wrote in his decision that the departments’ actions make it clear that they were working together to conduct targeted deportations with the goal of chilling speech—the repercussions of which are still being felt now.
The plaintiffs, which include the AAUP, three of its chapters—at Rutgers University, Harvard University and New York University—and the Middle East Studies Association, celebrated the win in a remote press conference Tuesday afternoon.
“That’s a really important victory and a really historic ruling that should have immediate implications for the Trump administration’s policies,” said Ramya Krishnan, the lead litigator on the case and a senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “If the First Amendment means anything, it’s that the government cannot imprison you because it doesn’t like the speech that you have engaged in, and this decision is really welcome because it reaffirms that basic idea, which is foundational to our democracy.”
Still, despite the victory, several of the plaintiffs emphasized just how worrying the federal government’s crusade against pro-Palestinian noncitizen students and faculty is. Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP, said he believes those actions, as well as the federal government’s other attacks against academic freedom, are an even greater threat to higher education than McCarthyism was.
“The only equivalents might be the Red Scare and McCarthyism, but this is even worse, right? Because it’s not only attacking individual speech, it’s also attacking institutional independence and speech, right?” he said. “The Trump administration’s attacks on higher ed are the greatest assault on this sector that we have ever seen in the history of this country.”
So, What Comes Next?
Young previously separated this case into two phases, one focused on the government’s liability and the other on relief for the plaintiffs. According to Krishnan, the judge will schedule a later hearing to determine that relief. The plaintiffs hope Young will forbid the government from continuing to target noncitizens based on their political views, making permanent an injunction that the judge granted in March.
But Young noted in his ruling Tuesday that he is unsure what a remedy for the plaintiffs might look like in an era when the president consistently seems able to avoid recourse for unconstitutional acts.
“I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected,” he wrote, concluding the decision.
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Dive Brief:
A federal judge has ordered leaders at the University of South Dakota to temporarily reinstate Phillip Michael Hook,a tenured art professor it sought to fire over a social media post critical of Charlie Kirk.
On Sept. 12, the university notified Hook he would be placed on administrative leave and that it intended to terminate his contract over a private Facebook post he shared criticizing Kirk the day of the conservative firebrand’s killing.
Hook is suing university leaders, alleging they unconstitutionally retaliated against him over his political speech.The professor’s case has a “fair chance of prevailing,” U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier said Wednesday in granting the temporary restraining order.
Dive Insight:
Hook is just one of an increasing number of college employees who have been reprimanded or fired over their speech about Kirk following his killing on Sept. 10. And a growing number of the educators affected are taking their cases to court. Schreier’s ruling this week represented one of the first court actions in such a lawsuit.
The federal judge said Hook must prove he made his comments as a citizen on “a public matter of concern” and that the University of South Dakota’s actions came as a result of that speech.
Hours after Kirk was killed, Hook said on his private Facebook account that he had no “thoughts or prayers” for Kirk.
In 2012, Kirk founded Turning Point USA, a conservative advocacy group geared toward young people, and became a prominent figure on college campusesin the process. Many of his political beliefs — such as opposition to race-conscious college admissions and gun control — fell in line with those of the conservative movement more broadly.
But his comments on some issues regularly prompted significant outcry and backlash, such as when he called Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson a “diversity hire” and said “prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target White people.” He also espoused the great replacement theory, which labels immigration policies as part of a plot to undermine the power and influence of White people.
“I’m sorry for his family that he was a hate spreading Nazi and got killed. I’m sure they deserved better,” Hook said in his Facebook post. “But geez, where was all this concern when the politicians in Minnesota were shot? And the school shootings? And Capitol Police?”
A few hours later, Hook deleted the post and shared “a public apology to those who were offended” by it on the same account. He published both posts while he was off work, according to court documents.
However, Hook’s original comments gained significant attention after conservative politicians shared a screenshot of them online.
Jon Hansen,the Republican speaker for South Dakota’s House and a 2026 candidate for governor, on Sept. 12 called Hook’s speech disgusting and “unbecoming of someone who works for and represents our University.”
“Yesterday, after seeing the post, I immediately reached out to USD President Sheila Gestring and called on the professor to be fired. I understand that the professor is likely to be terminated from his position,” Hansen said on social media.
A few hours later, South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden said Hook’s post made him “shaking mad” and that the South Dakota Board of Regents intended to fire the professor, a decision he applauded.
The same day, Hook received a letter from Bruce Kelley, the university’s fine arts dean, notifying him of the university’s “intent to terminate” his employment.
The letter alleged that Hook had violated two university policies, according to court documents.
One bans “neglect of duty, misconduct, incompetence, abuse of power or other actions” that diminish trust in faculty or prevent them from doing their job. The other requires that faculty “at all times be accurate, show respect for the opinions of others and make every effort to indicate when they are not speaking for the institution.”
University of South Dakota officials said this week that, over the two days between Hook’s post and Kelley’s letter, the university and the South Dakota Board of Regents received hundreds of messages criticizing Hook’s comments and calling for his removal.They confirmed that one such call came from Hansen.
However, the federal judge who ordered Hook’s temporary reinstatement said the officials failed to show that the reaction to the professor’s private comments disrupted his lessons or the university’s operations.
The Sept. 12 letter “identifies Hook’s social media post as the single piece of evidence it used to support its decision to terminate Hook’s position,” Schreier wrote.
Kelley had placed Hook on administrative leave until Sept. 29, when a personal conference was to be held to “discuss this matter and intended disciplinary action.”
Hook sued Kelley and Gestring, along with board president Tim Rave, on Tuesday seeking to have their decision ruled unconstitutional.
Schreier’s order will remain in effect until Oct. 8, when the court is scheduled to hear arguments over a more permanent preliminary injunction. The temporary restraining order allows for the Sept. 29 meeting to still occur, should the defendants choose.
A federal court order issued late Monday evening provides significant financial relief to the University of California, Los Angeles, restoring about $500 million in federal research grants amid an ongoing lawsuit with the Trump administration over alleged instances of antisemitism on campus.
The preliminary injunction, first reported by CalMatters and Politico, is temporary. But for now it reinstates more than 500 grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and the Department of Labor, allowing hundreds, if not thousands, of university researchers to resume their work. That’s on top of a previous order in August from the same court that unfroze about 300 grants from the National Science Foundation.
Between the two rulings, almost all of UCLA’s federal research grants have been restored.
The funds were first withheld in late July, less than a week after the Justice Department accused the university of tolerating discrimination against Jewish students, faculty members and staff, in violation of federal civil rights law. The Trump administration later said UCLA could resolve the situation by paying $1.2 billion and agreeing to lengthy list of policy changes.
But university researchers pushed back, using an existing broader lawsuit and injunction to challenge the grant freeze.
In the end, District Judge Rita F. Lin, a Biden appointee, ruled in favor of the faculty members, saying the indefinite suspensions of grants was “likely arbitrary,” “capricious” and a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
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Dive Brief:
A federal judge on Wednesday declined to restore more than $1 billion in research grants cut by the National Science Foundation over research related to diversity, equity and inclusion while a lawsuit against the agency goes forward.
In the ruling, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb concluded that the court didn’t have the jurisdiction to temporarily restore the grants and that plaintiffs failed to show they would experience “irreparable harm” from the agency’s new anti-DEI policies while the case proceeds.
Cobb cited in part a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that universities and researchers facing mass federal agency cuts must pursue their monetary claims in a separate federal court that handles economic and contractual disputes with the U.S. government.
Dive Insight:
In April, NSF issued a new statement of priorities asserting that grant awards “should not preference some groups at the expense of others, or directly/indirectly exclude individuals or groups.”
“Research projects with more narrow impact limited to subgroups of people based on protected class or characteristics do not effectuate NSF priorities,” the agency added. NSF also noted grants related to environmental justice and the study of disinformation would also fall short of the agency’s objectives under the Trump administration.
Mass cancellations of previously awarded grants followed. In June, a group of unions and higher education associations — including the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the American Association of University Professors — sued NSF.
They counted 1,600 canceled grants amounting to over $1 billion funding, including many that aimed at broadening participation of women, underrepresented groups and those with disabilities in scientific and technical fields.Commonly appearing typos and boilerplate language in many of the termination notices to researchers showed the mass, automatic nature of the cancellations.
“NSF afforded recipients of terminated grants no advance notice, and indeed no process whatsoever, before the terminations,” the complaint stated.
Plaintiffs argued that NSF’s anti-DEI directive and cancellations violated the law as well as the constitutional principles of separation of powers and due process. Among other things, plaintiffs said the grants carried out NSF’s “statutory directive to support an increase in the participation of underrepresented populations in STEM fields, including women, minorities, and people with disabilities.”
In her ruling Wednesday, Cobb, a Biden appointee, wrote that her court likely had jurisdiction to decide if NSF’s anti-DEI policies could be applied to future grants. But retroactively restoring the grants that had been canceled, as the plaintiffs had requested, would likely need to be handled by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Among other precedents, she cited last month’s Supreme Court ruling in a case against the National Institutes of Health over similar DEI-related grant cancellations at that agency. While the top court declined to block a district court’s order that struck down the NIH’s anti-DEI guidance, it said the plaintiffs must seek relief for the canceled grants in federal claims court.
Critics of the decision — including justices in the liberal minority — said that the ruling would add new complications and delays while research projects and laboratories suffer.
Cobb further concluded that plaintiffs’ argument that their constitutional rights were violated was unlikely to succeed, finding that their claims were instead statutory in nature. There again Cobb cited a recent case against the Trump administration, this one brought by the Global Health Council over mass cuts at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal organization representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit, called Cobb’s decision not to block NSF’s terminations disappointing and “a loss for American innovation and excellence.”
“This case is not over and we are eager to defend the important role the NSF plays in the daily lives of Americans,” the group said in a statement.
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Dive Brief:
The Trump administration violated Harvard University’s First Amendment rightsand didn’t follow proper procedures when it froze $2.2 billion of the university’s federal funding earlier this year, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughsalso ruled that the federal government acted arbitrarily and capriciously when halting the funds. The judicial branch must ensure important research isn’t improperly terminated, she wrote,“even if doing so risks the wrath of a government committed to its agenda no matter the cost.”
Burroughsstruck down the Trump administration’s freeze orders and grant termination letters, opening the door for Harvard’s funding to be reinstated. But a White House spokesperson said the Trump administration will immediately move to appeal the decision and keep Harvard “ineligible for grants in the future,” in apparent defiance of the ruling.
Dive Insight:
In April, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts to Harvard, hours after the university’s leadershiprebuked its demands for changes to its admissions, hiring, governance and campus policies.
The federal government carried out the freeze under the auspices of the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, which has alleged that the Ivy League institution has not done enough to fight antisemitism on its campus.Subsequent grant termination letters from multiple federal agencies repeated those claims.
But Burroughs questioned that rationale in her decision Wednesday, saying a connection between the federal government’s stated motivations and actions was “wholly lacking.”
The evidence does not “reflect that fighting antisemitism was Defendants’ true aim in acting against Harvard,” the judge wrote in her 84-page ruling. “Even if it were, combatting antisemitism cannot be accomplished on the back of the First Amendment.”
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon also told Harvard in a May 5 letter that it would cut the university off from all future research grants — an order that Burroughs also permanently blocked.
Burroughs also cast doubt on the Trump administration’s argument that its revocation of Harvard’s funding had nothing to do with university President Alan Garber’srefusal to comply with extensive federal ultimatums.
Among several wide-ranging requirements, the Trump administration sought to have Harvard hire a third party to audit programs and departments that it described as fueling “antisemitic harassment” or reflecting “ideological capture.” It also called for “meaningful governance reform” within the university, such as reducing the power of faculty engaged in activism.
The ultimatums and cut-off funds prompted Harvard to sue the federal government in April. It argued that the Trump administration violated its free speech by pulling funding for refusing to comply with viewpoint-based demands and that the government didn’t follow the proper procedures for terminating the grants.
Despite the Trump administration assertions that Harvard’s pulled funding was unrelated, Burroughs said its own members undercut its argument.
“Numerous government officials spoke publicly and contemporaneously on these issues, including about their motivations, and those statements are flatly inconsistent with what Defendants now contend,” the judge wrote.
Burroughs cited social media posts from President Donald Trump two days after the task force announced the funding freeze.
“Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds,” he wrote on April 16.
That post and others like it demonstrated that Trump’s ongoing concern was “untethered from antisemitism,” Burroughs said.
But a White House spokesperson doubled down on Wednesday, saying the federal government’s actions against the university are intended to “hold Harvard accountable.”
“To any fair-minded observer, it is clear that Harvard University failed to protect their students from harassment and allowed discrimination to plague their campus for years,” White House Assistant Press Secretary Liz Huston said in an email.Burroughs was “always going to rule in Harvard’s favor, regardless of the facts,” she added.
In late April, Harvard published two long-awaited reports about the climate of its Massachusetts campus — one on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias and another on anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias.
The reports found that Jewish, Israeli and Zionist students and employees at Harvard — along with their Muslim, Arab and Palestinian peers — at times felt shunned or harassed while at the university during the 2023-24 academic year.
“Harvard was wrong to tolerate hateful behavior for as long as it did,” Burroughs wrote before noting that the university is “currently, even if belatedly, taking steps it needs to take to combat antisemitism and seems willing to do even more if need be.”
But the federal government failed to consider this, the judge wrote.
“The agencies considered little, if any, data regarding the antisemitism problem at Harvard” and disregarded “substantial policy and other changes” the university enacted to address the issue, Burroughs said.
They also “failed to weigh the importance of any particular grant or to evaluate whether a particular grant recipient had engaged in antisemitic behavior before cutting off critical research,” she said.
A federal judge in Boston ruled in favor of Harvard University Wednesday.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Mandel Ngan and Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images
A judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration illegally froze more than $2 billion in research funding at Harvard University over how officials handled alleged campus antisemitism.
Judge Allison Burroughs of the U.S. District Court in Boston found that the federal government violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights and the U.S. Civil Rights Act in her 84-page opinion, writing, “We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other.” She added that Harvard is “currently, even if belatedly” taking action against antisemitism.
Harvard sued the Trump administration in April after the federal government froze $2.2 billion in funding when the Ivy League university rejected demands to enact a far-reaching slate of changes that would have overhauled admissions, governance, hiring and much more.
Burroughs, an Obama appointee, appeared skeptical of the Trump administration’s claims in a July hearing, telling government lawyers that they failed to back up claims Harvard did not appropriately address antisemitism. She also ruled against the administration in another case in June, temporarily blocking the government from halting Harvard’s ability to host international students.
Burroughs wrote Wednesday that “Harvard was wrong to tolerate hateful behavior for as long as it did,” but “the record … does not reflect that fighting antisemitism” was the “true aim” of the defendants and such efforts “cannot be accomplished on the back of the First Amendment.”
The ruling comes as rumors of a Harvard settlement with the federal government continue to swirl. The Trump administration has demanded a $500 million settlement that would force other changes to admissions and discipline policies, similar to agreements made by its Ivy League peers Columbia University and Brown University.
Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement Wednesday that “the ruling affirms Harvard’s First Amendment and procedural rights, and validates our arguments in defense of the University’s academic freedom, critical scientific research, and the core principles of American higher education.”
Wednesday’s legal ruling also prompted celebration from free speech groups and others.
“Today, a federal court echoed what [the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression] has said all along: The Trump administration trampled Harvard University’s First Amendment rights and broke civil rights law when it yanked billions in federal grants and contracts over alleged Title VI violations,” FIRE wrote in a statement.
“This is a huge win for all of American higher education, for science, and for free and critical thought in this country,” said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors. “Time and again, Trump has tried to restrict speech and cripple lifesaving university research. As today’s victory shows, Trump’s war on higher education is unconstitutional. We will continue to stand up and fight back against these attempts to dismantle our universities, terrify students and faculty, and punish hospitals and scientists for not bowing to authoritarianism. And we will win.”
The American Council on Education praised Burroughs’s ruling.
“We are pleased to see a federal court affirm what we always knew to be true: The Trump administration has ignored the law in pursuing politically motivated attacks on Harvard and other institutions,” said Peter McDonough, general counsel for ACE. “We urge the administration to abandon these harmful attacks and instead work to restore the partnership that has made colleges and universities the engine of American innovation for decades.”
Judging from the Department of Education’s response to the ruling, that seems unlikely.
“In an unsurprising turn of events, the same Obama-appointed judge that ruled in favor of Harvard’s illegal race-based admissions practices—which was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court—just ruled against the Trump Administration’s efforts to hold Harvard accountable for rampant discrimination on campus,” spokesperson Madi Biedermann wrote in an emailed statement. “Cleaning up our nation’s universities will be a long road, but worth it.”
In a post on X, Education Secretary Linda McMahon added, “The Trump Administration is fully committed to appealing this erroneous decision and will ensure that new taxpayer funding is not invested at any university that steadfastly refuses to uphold civil rights for all students.”
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Dive Brief:
A federal judgeon Friday struck down a Minnesota lawprohibiting colleges that require high school students to sign statements of faith from participating in a state dual enrollment program.
The University of Northwesternand Crown College,two conservativeChristian institutions in Minnesota, sued the state in 2023 over the law which rendered them ineligible to participate in the Postsecondary Enrollment Options program. Both colleges require on-campus students to sign religious conduct agreements.
Siding with the colleges, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel ruled that Minnesota’s law infringed on their constitutional rightsby making them choose between participating in the PSEO program and practicing their religion.
Dive Insight:
Since 1985, Minnesota’s PSEO programhas allowed local high school students to earn college credit for nonsectarian coursework at participating colleges. The program is free for eligible students and reimburses collegeswith fixed paymentsper credit hour.
But a 2023 law, passed by the state’sDemocrat-controlled Legislature,prohibited colleges from participating in the program if they require faith statements or make admission decisions based on “race, creed, ethnicity, disability, gender, or sexual orientation or religious beliefs or affiliations.”
The University of Northwestern requires students and employees to sign a pledge to abstain from “same sex romantic intimacy.” And Crown’s student conduct policy does not allowinvolvement or promotion of “any sexual behavior outside the marriage of one man and one woman.”
Both institutions, joined by three parents of high school students,sued the state the same day Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed the legislation into law.
The Minnesota Department of Education filed counterclaims, arguing that Crown and the University of Northwestern’s admissions policies for the PSEO program are unconstitutional.
Early on in the case, Brasel blocked the state from enforcing the new law, allowing the colleges to continue enrolling PSEO students and earning state funds from the program while the case proceeded. Between the 2017-18 and 2022-23 academic year, the University of Northwestern received over $33.2 million from the program, and Crown received roughly $5.8 million.
In her Friday ruling, Brasel sided with the colleges.
“If the Schools’ eligibility to participate in PSEO is conditioned on not using faith statements as an admissions requirement, their free exercise in maintaining a campus community of like‐minded believers is burdened,” said Brasel, a Trump appointee. Families also lose their right to free exercise of religion if they can’t use the public benefit at “a school of their choice of like‐minded believers,” she said.
The judge further wrote that if the state elects to fund private education, officials cannot disqualify private schools solely because they’re religious.
Brasel also dismissed the state’s counterclaims Friday.
The Minnesota Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
The leaders of Crown and the University of Northwestern — Andrew Denton and Corbin Hoornbeek, respectively — celebrated the verdict Saturday.
“This legislation has given us yet another opportunity to affirm our mission; we remain committed to equipping our students to grow intellectually and spiritually to serve effectively in their professions and give God-honoring leadership in the home, church, community, and world,” Hoornbeek said in a statement.
The same day, Denton thanked the legislators who originally opposed the ban and said Crown was grateful for the law’s reversal.
“The court made clear that Minnesota cannot single out high school students who want to attend a faith-centered institution,” he said.
