Luther Rice College and Seminary, a private Baptist school incorporated in 1962, is suing Georgia officials over their decision to exclude the school from student financial aid programs. The school is represented by Christian legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom, which filed the suit Oct. 15.
“This civil-rights action seeks to prevent the government from forcing a Christian college to surrender its religious character, beliefs and exercise to participate in Georgia’s student aid programs just like other schools,” ADF says in its legal complaint. Luther Rice has not publicly commented on the case.
“The state should never limit educational opportunities for students solely due to their religious beliefs, ADF declared in a summary statement.
Georgia law prohibits private schools that are considered a “school or college of theology or divinity” from participating in public tuition assistance programs. State officials determined that even non-theology degree programs at Luther Rice are so intertwined with religious studies that the school does not qualify for general education grants.
Students have been “unjustly excluded” from attending Luther Rice, ADF claims, and the school has been forced to make an impossible choice “between (a) maintaining its religious mission and degree programs and teaching all courses from a Christian worldview, or (b) giving up that religious character and exercise to participate equally with other schools in the state.”
ADF claims: “Putting the school to that choice is unconstitutional.”
ADF cites five other similar Christian colleges or schools allowed to participate in the state’s student aid programs — Truett McConnell University, Brewton-Parker College, Shorter University, Emmanuel University, and Toccoa Falls College — although those schools are more traditional in their curriculum than Luther Rice.
Founded in Jacksonville, Fla., Luther Rice relocated to Georgia in 1991 after receiving donated property in Lithonia, Ga. It enrolls 757 students for the 2023-24 school year, 269 of them undergraduates. The school is named after Luther Rice, a Baptist leader who promoted missionary work, Baptist unity and the education of ministers.
From its inception, Luther Rice Seminary had a dotted-line relationship to the most conservative wing of the Southern Baptist Convention. In the beginning, it was billed as a more conservative school than any of the six SBC seminaries. As the SBC schools have become more conservative in the past 30 years, that distinction has faded.
Luther Rice publicity says the school seeks to provide “biblically based on-campus and distance education to Christian men and women for ministry and the marketplace” and offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in leadership, counseling, apologetics, Christian worldview, Christian studies, and Christian ministry.
As BNG reported, Alliance Defending Freedom was founded 30 years ago by conservative Christian leaders and now has an annual budget of more than $100 million, a national network of more than 4,000 allied attorneys, and an impressive track record, winning hundreds of cases, including 15 Supreme Court victories that overturned Roe v Wade, protected bakers and web designers who refused to serve gay weddings, and more.
Five of its high court wins have come in education-related cases, including Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn that involved state restrictions on scholarships to private schools. Its other education victories were:
- Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, which protected the rights of a college student who saw restrictions on sharing his faith with fellow students on campus.
- Southern Nazarene University v. Burwell and Geneva College v. Burwell that freed Christian schools from requirements to include all FDA-approved contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs and devices, in their employee and student health plans.
- Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, which required Missouri taxpayers to fund physical improvements to a Christian school.