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The core mission of the Texas Attorney General’s office includes defending the state and state agencies in court. But on Friday, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office filed a rare lawsuit against a Texas agency.
The lawsuit seeks to force the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s commissioner and board members to end three university work-study programs that Paxton’s office claims unconstitutionally discriminates against religious students.
Filed in a Travis County district court, the lawsuit alleges that the board is violating the First Amendment by prohibiting work-study participants from “engaging in sectarian activities, including sectarian courses of study,” to receive state benefits.
The Texas College Work-Study Program, the Texas Working Off-Campus: Reinforcing Knowledge and Skills Internship Program and the Innovative Adult Career Education Grant Program are all funded by the state and controlled by the coordinating board.
The programs provide financially needy students with jobs and support that help them afford attending college in Texas. Institutes and employers must give eligible students employment in “nonpartisan and non-sectarian activities,” which the lawsuit argues is a violation of the First Amendment because it excludes religious organizations with only sectarian employment opportunities from receiving state funds.
The lawsuit also says that prohibiting students enrolled in seminary programs from participating amounts to a “wholesale exclusion” of people that the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled against.
“These anti-Christian laws targeting religious students must be completely wiped off the books,” Paxton said in a statement. “Our nation was built by patriotic Americans who had the freedom to express their religious beliefs without fear of being targeted, and we will honor that heritage by upholding the First Amendment in Texas.”
A spokesperson for the board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For the 2026 fiscal year, the coordinating board had allocated more than $8 million for state work-study programs for all of Texas’ public and private institutions of higher education.