From the Associated Press: Religious colleges that require students to sign a statement of faith cannot be excluded from a popular Minnesota program that lets high school students take college courses for credit, a federal judge has ruled, tossing a state law that she called an unconstitutional violation of religious freedom.
The ruling late Friday from U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel was a victory for two conservative Christian colleges in the state: Crown College in St. Bonifacius and the University of Northwestern in Roseville. Those two institutions require their students to pledge to follow the school’s values and conduct rules, effectively barring students who aren’t Christian or who are LGBTQ+ from campus activities.
The 2023 law was sought by the state Department of Education and advocates for LGBTQ+ rights. In defending the change at a hearing in December, the state argued that it rightly protected high school students who are not Christian, straight, and cisgender — those whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth.
Minnesota’s 40-year-old Postsecondary Enrollment Options program lets high schoolers earn free credits at state expense at public or private colleges of their choice, although the courses must be nonsectarian. Around 60,000 students have participated.
Now a Trump-appointed judge has handed a win to the two conservative Christian colleges, allowing them to keep the faith statement requirement in place.
ABOUT THIS JUDGE: Judge Nancy E. Brasel is a United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. She was born in 1969 in England. Ironically, she was recommended as a federal judge by Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2017, and nominated by President Donald Trump in February 2018. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in August 2018.
READ MORE from the Associated Press.
U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel has ruled that Minnesota’s 2023 amendment blocking UNW and Crown from offering on-campus PSEO programs is unconstitutional.
Read more here: https://t.co/gp8W93dSZO pic.twitter.com/f8dBBVSlAF
— UNW (@NorthwesternMN) August 24, 2025
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