In a 7-2 decision authored by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the U.S. Supreme Court held in February that the State of Washington was not compelled by the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause to include theology majors in its Promise Scholarship program.

The Washington constitution prohibits funding for sectarian religious instruction. The Promise Scholarship criteria were established consistent with this constitutional prohibition. Although the Supreme Court held that Washington could have included theology majors, under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, it was not obligated to do so by the Free Exercise Clause. In other words, there is no free exercise right to obtain state funding for religion.

Although the ruling itself was narrow, and may well not encompass such a broad principle, this is the right precedent to set. The Court noted that many colonial constitutions specifically prohibited public funding of religion. State funding for clergy and churches was basic to all colonial religious establishments.

This decision did not back off from the voucher decision, however, and affirmed that government funding of religion is permitted when it is governed by private choice. The Court has never ruled that states can directly fund religion. Scalia’s dissenting opinion would have been a giant step toward direct state funding of religion. If the Court had held that states were no longer free to exclude religion from government funding schemes, the Establishment Clause would have been deprived of one of its historic reasons for existence.