The Freedom From Religion Foundation and its donor members have collaborated with the Secular Student Alliance (SSA) to select, fund and distribute major secular student activism awards for 2026.
FFRF is pleased to announce three winners of a $1,000 student activist award endowed by FFRF member Al Luneman.
The Secular Student Alliance annually publicizes some of FFRF’s specific student scholarships, along with those of other groups and individuals, provides applicant information, and vets the chosen students, which FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor praises as a “wonderful service to FFRF, other donors and students.” As per alliance policy, only students’ first names are used to protect their identities.
Al Luneman Student Activist Awards
Isaiah
Isaiah is a student activist at Paradise Valley Community College in Arizona with a long-standing passion for political affairs, constitutional law and academic excellence. Isaiah is studying to earn a law degree and become an attorney. Their academic and career focus is centered around the legal and political field, such as constitutional, antitrust, regulatory affairs and criminal justice.
Isaiah has led activism across Arizona as a political canvasser, engaging everyday voters and citizens on economic and political issues, including collecting petition signatures for ballot measures, voter registration and educating the public.
Isaiah is a member of the LGBTQ community, which radicalized them to continue achieving equality under the law, on a platform of secularism and religious nonaffiliation.
Isaiah has fought against Arizona’s ESA voucher program, which has instituted a disastrous burden on public education funding, disintegrating a secular education system that instead chooses to subsidize private school tuition, including private religious schools and multimillionaire families.
Karina
Karina is a student at Longmont High School in Colorado. Her passion is medicine, research and activism through compassionately understanding people’s belief systems.
Growing up, she never believed in God. Her parents were raised religious — her Dad was born into a Protestant family, her mother into a Muslim — but had become atheists as adults. Throughout her childhood, she learned about religions, sacred texts and how teachings are interpreted into daily life. Through a desire to understand the way people interpret the world, she has become a safe person for her peers to discuss their beliefs while questioning religious activities in school and proposing alternatives.
Karina’s plans involve a lot of schooling: majors in evolutionary biology and bioengineering, a master’s and Ph.D. in evolutionary biology focusing on epidemiology. Then she plans to attend medical school to become a neurosurgeon.
Vitha
Vitha is a junior at Duke University. She is studying psychology and global health. Her interests include clinical and moral psychology and ethical inquiry, especially questions of atheism, humanism and how people construct meaning, values and resilience outside of imposed belief systems.
Vitha identifies as an ex-Muslim, humanist and atheist and leads Duke’s chapter of the Secular Student Alliance. Her secular identity inspired her activism for ex-religious and nonreligious people to have a safe space where they can find like-minded individuals.
As an ex-Muslim, Vitha has seen how barriers to safe spaces can prevent people from speaking up about challenges. She has worked with the Secular Student Alliance to build community and support for students who want to talk about religion’s impact on their life and on the world; she wants students to know they are not alone.
Vitha hopes to become a psychologist to conduct research and treatments for people who have left high-control religion and/or deal with depression and trauma.
FFRF thanks member Al Luneman for making these scholarships possible.
FFRF has a variety of scholarships available to give directly to students for exceptional activism. If you know of any student who is actively helping to uphold state/church separation or fighting for the rights of nonbelievers, please use the form at ffrf.us/nominate.
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 more than 40,000 members, FFRF advocates for freethinkers’ rights across the globe. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
