The Freedom From Religion Foundation has announced its 2025 essay competitions for freethinking students, offering $70,000 (or more) in total scholarships.
Each of these four contests has 10 top prizes: First place — $3,500; second place — $3,000; third place — $2,500; fourth place — $2,000; fifth place — $1,500; sixth place — $1,000; seventh place — $750; eighth place — $500; ninth place — $400; and 10th place — $300. FFRF also offers optional honorable mentions of $200.
The contests cater to students in various age and class ranges.
Students may only enter one FFRF contest annually and may not enter a contest if they have previously won an award in that particular contest.
Requirements: Winners may be asked to send verification of student enrollment. Students will be disqualified if they do not follow instructions, including the word limit and the deadline. Students must submit their essays via the online application and carefully review all contest rules. FFRF monitors for plagiarism. Include links or footnotes for quotes, studies cited, or significant facts relied upon. Entrants must verify that the essay is their original work and that AI was not used in the writing of the text (beyond grammar and spellcheck).
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- David Hudak Memorial black, indigenous and persons of color student essay competition – closed – see winners below
- William Schulz high school essay contest closed – winners announced
- Kenneth L. Proulx Memorial essay contest for ongoing college students – closed
- Cornelius Vander Broek graduate/older student essay competition – closed
- Diane and Stephen Uhl Memorial essay competition for law students – closed – see winners below
William J. Schulz Memorial Essay Contest for College-Bound High School Seniors
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is proud to announce the winners of the 2025 William Schulz High School Essay Contest. FFRF has awarded $17,950 in scholarship money for this year’s contest!
College-bound high school seniors were asked to write a personal persuasive essay based on this prompt: “To do good is my religion. Write a first-person essay that asserts why ‘doing good’ is not dependent on religious belief.”
FFRF awarded 11 top prizes and 10 honorable mentions. (FFRF seeks to distribute essay scholarship monies to a higher number of students, so ties — such as eighth place in this contest — are not regarded in the typical tie fashion, where, in this instance, ninth place would be skipped.)
Winners are listed below and include the college or university they are now attending and the award amount.
FIRST PLACE
Shaurya Bhartia, UC-Berkeley, $3,500.
SECOND PLACE
Benjamin Meerson, UC-Berkeley, $3,000.
THIRD PLACE
Ian Klimov, Yale, $2,500
FOURTH PLACE
Patrick Le Febvre, University of Connecticut, $2,000.
FIFTH PLACE
Alice Giambalvo, Texas A&M, $1,500.
SIXTH PLACE
Noelle Kim, California Institute of Technology, $1,000.
SEVENTH PLACE
Dong En Wu, Marquette University, $750.
EIGHTH PLACE (tie)
Kiera Robinson, Nova Southeastern University, $500.
Kennedy Cordle, North Carolina A&T State University, $500.
NINTH PLACE
Callum Wilford, University of Florida, $400.
TENTH PLACE
Chauntel Berry, Rochester Institute of Technology, $300.
HONORABLE MENTIONS ($200 each)
Isabella Cassells, Coastal Carolina University.
Ariana Delgado, University of Texas- El Paso.
Jayden Fernandez-Morales, University of California-Riverside.
Caleb Forehand, East Carolina University.
Anna Izquierdo, Colby College.
Jocelynn Malone, Heidelberg University (Ohio).
Eden Sterk, University of Florida.
Aliani Timmons, Carnegie Mellon University.
Sophia Wang, University of Florida.
Josiah Wiegrefe, Minnesota State University-Moorhead.
The high school contest is named for the late William J. Schulz, a Wisconsin member and lifelong learner who died at 57 and left a generous bequest to FFRF.
FFRF warmly thanks FFRF’s Lisa Treu for managing the minute details of this and FFRF’s other annual student competitions. And we couldn’t judge these contests without our volunteer and staff readers and judges, including: Don Ardell, Dan Barker, Wrenna Fine, Jon Galehouse, Annie Luarie Gaylor, Brian Gillaspie, Susan Gould, Richard Grimes, Ricki Grunberg, Linda Josheff, Sammi Lawrence, Tori Mizerak, Henry Mongrain, Jason Mosebach, Joanna Papich, Gene Perry, Rose Mary Sheldon and PJ Slinger.
FFRF has offered essay competitions to college students since 1979, high school students since 1994, grad students since 2010 and one dedicated to students of color since 2016. A fifth contest, open to law students, began in 2019.
Kenneth L. Proulx Memorial Essay Contest for Ongoing College Students
Topic: Currently enrolled college students (up to age 24) may write on: “Why the only afterlife that should concern us is leaving our descendants and planet a secure and pleasant future.”
Prompt: Research and write a first-person essay about how religious mindsets and belief in an unprovable “afterlife” have a negative impact on promoting human welfare and our planet. Show how this religious claim still leads our planet astray in solving the world’s problems, such as climate change, inequality or public health. Briefly explain why you reject religion and belief in an afterlife, and why keeping our focus on this world is best.
Actor and FFRF Lifetime Member Mr. Madison Arnold is generously endowing the $1,000 prize in the ongoing college competition. Madison, who is 89, has given a $30,000 endowment as a living bequest, what he calls a “pre-quest.”
Word limit: 450–650.
Deadline: June 1, 2025
David Hudak Memorial Essay Contest for Freethinking Black, Indigenous and Students of Color
Topic: Black, Indigenous and Students of Color ages 17–21 (college-bound high school seniors to currently enrolled college students) may write on the topic of “How white Christian nationalism endangers my rights.”
Prompt: Research and write a first-person essay about how white Christian nationalism poses a danger to your rights. Choose one particular attack by Christian nationalism on civil liberties, such as against DEI, voting rights, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, or general civil rights, and explain how white Christian nationalism poses a threat and how that threat impacts you, your family, or others in the BIPOC community. Suggest one or two strategies that you, as a nonreligious individual, could personally do to combat white Christian nationalism and champion secularism and equality.
Eligibility: This contest is offered to support and acknowledge freethinking Students of Color as a minority within a minority. The other FFRF student contests are open to all students.
Word limit: 350–500.
Deadline: June 1, 2025
Cornelius Vander Broek Essay Contest for ‘Graduate/Older’ Students
Topic: Graduate students (through age 30) and “older” undergrads (ages 25–30) are asked to write on the topic: “State/church issues endangered by the Trump administration’s capitulation to Christian nationalism.”
Prompt: Focus on one issue related to state/church separation or secular social policy that you consider to be under threat by Christian nationalist policies in the Trump administration. Issues might include: federal vouchers for religious education at the expense of public schools; contraception and abortion rights; LGBTQ rights; vaccinations and public health; climate change mitigation, etc. Research and explain what’s at stake, show how Christian nationalism is behind this attack, and include some ideas about combating the threat.
Word limit: 550–750.
Deadline: June 1, 2025
2025 winners of the Diane and Stephen Uhl Memorial essay competition for law students
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is proud to announce the three winners of the Diane and Stephen Uhl Memorial Essay Competition for Law Students.
FFRF paid out a total of $9,000 to the winners of this year’s contest.
Law school students were asked to write an essay on this topic: “If you could create a 28th Amendment, what would it be?” The essay prompt the students were given was: “During its most recent terms, the Supreme Court has issued decisions that more or less ignore the Establishment Clause and favor an extreme interpretation of free exercise rights. Propose language for a constitutional amendment that would bring the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses back into balance, and then analyze how your proposed language would alter the result in a recent Supreme Court case.”
For ease of reading, the essays published here do not include the footnotes and citations that were included in the authors’ submissions. The FFRF Legal Team graded and selected the winners.
Winners are listed below and include the law school they are attending and the award amount.
First place: Michael O’Key, UCLA School of Law, $4,000.
Second place: Vasili Sgourakis, Iowa Law School, $3,000.
Third place: Nerma Pasic, University of Houston Law School, $2,000.
All eligible entrants will receive a digital year-long student membership in FFRF.
FFRF appreciates its members who make the effort to contact local high schools, colleges and universities to help publicize its competitions.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters of nontheism. With nearly 42,000 members, FFRF advocates for freethinkers’ rights across the globe. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
