弗吉尼亚州的宗教学院学生不应被迫在遵从宗教使命与获得其他学生同样的教育资助之间做出抉择。这正是“霍尔诉弗莱明案”的核心争议点。此案为美国最高法院提供了一个纠正其《第一修正案》司法实践中存在的不合理现象的良机。弗吉尼亚州为符合条件的本州居民设立了“弗吉尼亚学费援助金”，资助他们就读于州内的私立非营利性高等院校。
Religious college students in Virginia should not have to choose between following their religious calling and receiving the same educational assistance available to other students. That is the central issue in Hall v. Fleming, a case that presents the Supreme Court of the United States with an opportunity to correct a troubling anomaly in its First Amendment jurisprudence. Virginia offers the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant to eligible residents attending private, nonprofit colleges and universities in the Commonwealth. Eligible students can receive thousands of dollars toward their education. But Virginia draws a line when a student chooses certain religious majors. Liberty University student Bethany Hall crossed that line and lost her grant. Hall entered Liberty intending to study Music Education: Choral. She was initially approved for a tuition assistance grant. But during her freshman year, she “heard God’s call” to ministry and changed her major to Youth Ministries.
符合条件的学生可获得数千美元的学费补助。然而，当学生选择某些宗教相关专业时，资助资格便会被取消。自由大学的学生贝瑟尼·霍尔就因触犯这一规定而失去了资助资格。霍尔入学时原本打算攻读合唱音乐教育专业，当时她也顺利获得了学费援助资格。但在大一那年，她“听到了上帝的召唤”，决定投身宗教事工，于是将专业改为青少年事工。
That change made her ineligible for the assistance. She subsequently changed her major to Christian Leadership and Church Ministries and ultimately to Music and Worship. Those programs were likewise classified as ineligible religious programs. Her choice of Music and Worship is particularly important. Hall is pursuing an education consistent with what she believes is her religious vocation: ministering through music and worship to young people. Rather than abandon that calling to preserve her financial aid, she chose to continue in the religious major. As a result, she has personally paid the tuition that the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant program would otherwise have covered.
这一变更导致她失去了资助资格。此后她又先后将专业改为基督教领导力与教会事工，最后改为音乐与敬拜。这些专业同样被归类为不符合资助条件的宗教类专业。她选择音乐与敬拜专业尤为关键：她所追求的教育方向完全契合其宗教使命——通过音乐与敬拜来服务青少年群体。为了坚守这一使命，她宁可放弃经济援助，自行承担原本应由资助计划支付的学费。
Had Bethany continued to pursue a degree in music education, she would be eligible. But because she is pursuing a degree in worship music, she is not. That is precisely the kind of choice the First Amendment prevents. But, in 2004, in a case called Locke v. Davey, the Supreme Court said the opposite — that states can discriminate against students of faith in tuition assistance programs. And Virginia’s program does exactly that. It does not simply ask whether a student attends an eligible institution. Students at religious universities can participate in the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant program. Rather, the state examines what the student chooses to study and withdraws the benefit if the subject becomes something the state deems too religious.
倘若贝瑟尼继续攻读音乐教育专业，她本可获得资助；但由于她选择的是敬拜音乐专业，便失去了资格。这正是《第一修正案》旨在避免出现的两难选择。然而在2004年，在一桩名为“洛克诉……最高法院的裁决却恰恰相反——各州有权在学费援助项目中歧视信仰宗教的学生。弗吉尼亚州的这项计划正是如此。该计划并非仅仅核查学生是否就读于符合资格的院校；事实上，就读于宗教学校的学生同样可以参与弗吉尼亚州学费援助计划。然而，州政府还会审查学生所选修的专业，一旦该专业被认定为“过于宗教化”，学生便会失去获得资助的资格。根据该计划，宗教培训及神学教育类课程被明确排除在资助范围之外；不过，若学生同时修读其他符合资格的专业，在特定情况下仍可保留资助资格。美国第四巡回上诉法院指出，霍尔的案情与洛克诉戴维案几乎如出一辙。但合议庭中的理查森法官则持不同意见，他认为洛克案的裁决存在错误，并呼吁最高法院受理此案并予以推翻。自洛克案之后，法院多次强化了对政府福利项目中宗教歧视行为的防范力度。在“三一路德教会诉科默案”“埃斯皮诺萨诉蒙大拿州税务局案”以及“卡森诉马金案”中，法院均明确表明：政府绝不能仅以宗教因素为由，将宗教人士排除在本应向其提供的公共福利之外。尤为重要的是，卡森案否定了这样一种观点：即政府只需将歧视行为定义为对“宗教用途”的限制而非基于宗教身份的歧视，便可规避《宗教自由条款》的约束。这一原则理应适用于本案中的贝瑟尼。政府无权决定哪些学术领域因“过于宗教化”而不配获得经济资助。无论原本修读商科、工程学、历史学还是音乐教育的学生，即便后来转而研习神学或宗教研究，同样应享有宪法赋予的保护。
Under the program, religious training and theological education programs are excluded, even though students pursuing eligible and religious majors as a double major can remain eligible under certain circumstances. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit explained that Hall’s case is materially identical to Locke v. Davey. But one of the judges on the panel, Judge Richarson, filed an opinion arguing that Locke had been wrongly decided and called on the Supreme Court to take the case and overrule it. Since Locke, the court has repeatedly strengthened protections against religious discrimination in government benefit programs. In Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, and Carson v. Makin, the court made clear that government generally cannot exclude religious participants from otherwise available public benefits simply because of religion. Most significantly, Carson rejected the notion that government may evade the Free Exercise Clause merely by characterizing discrimination as a restriction on "religious use" rather than religious status.
第一修正案保护宗教活动，正是因为政府无权决定哪些合法的宗教信仰值得获得平等对待，哪些则不值得。贝瑟尼的案件并不仅仅涉及一笔数额不大的学费补助；它探讨的是政府能否以学生必须放弃宗教信仰作为前提条件，才向其提供本应普遍适用的福利。答案显然是否定的。最高法院应当批准贝瑟尼的申诉请求，推翻“洛克诉戴维案”的判决，并重申这一基本的宪法原则：政府无权要求学生必须放弃信仰才能获得福利，也无权要求学生为了保留信仰而放弃应得的福利。史蒂夫·菲奇恩是全国法律基金会主席，也是“霍尔诉弗莱明案”的主要辩护律师。
That principle should apply to Bethany in this case. The government should not be in the business of deciding which academic pursuits are too religious to deserve financial assistance. A student studying business, engineering, history, or music education does not surrender constitutional protection by switching to study ministry or worship. The First Amendment protects religious exercise precisely because government is not supposed to determine which lawful religious commitments are worthy of equal treatment and which are not. Bethany’s case involves more than a modest tuition assistance grant. It asks whether government can condition an otherwise generally available benefit on a student's willingness to abandon a religious calling. The answer should be no. The Supreme Court should grant Bethany’s petition, overrule Locke v. Davey, and reaffirm the simple constitutional principle that government may not tell a student that she can have a benefit if she gives up her faith, or keep her faith if she gives up the benefit. Steve Fitschen is President of the National Legal Foundation. He is lead counsel in Hall v. Fleming.