The Lawyer Asking the Supreme Court to Overrule Locke v. Davey Is the Student Who Lost It
Virginia pays for a degree in music. It will not pay for a degree in music and worship. On Tuesday the student who lost that argument in 2004 filed the brief asking the Supreme Court to reconsider.
Strip the case to its principle and it is not complicated. Virginia runs a tuition grant open to almost any student at almost any college in the state. It pays for a degree in music. It will not pay for a degree in music and worship.
Bethany Hall qualified for that grant at Liberty University in Lynchburg as a music education major. Then she changed her major to music and worship, and the money stopped. The Fourth Circuit ruled against her, and it did so for a reason that has nothing to do with what Virginia thinks of Bethany Hall. It ruled against her because in 2004 the Supreme Court said a state may do exactly this.
On Tuesday, August 11, her attorneys filed a petition asking the Court to say it was wrong.
One of those attorneys is Josh Davey. In 2004 he was the college student on the losing end of Locke v. Davey, denied a Washington state scholarship because he intended to study for the ministry. He is now a lawyer at Troutman Pepper Locke, and he is counsel for Bethany Hall.
