Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case regarding whether a 40-foot-high cross, built by the American Legion to honor U.S. soldiers and sailors who died in World War I, violates the First Amendment because it is located on Maryland state public property. Asma Uddin and Greg Dolin argue that such an expansive interpretation of the establishment clause would work to the detriment of religious minorities:

In the U.S. today, even if we banish Christian symbols from public spaces, Americans will still come across Christian symbols, history, imagery, and narrative. Minority religions in America do not enjoy this same pervasiveness. Most people are not familiar with Jewish ritualistic practices like kapparot (which, according to some customs, involves the slaughter of a chicken that is then donated to a needy family) or the sale and later repurchase of ḥamets (leaven, prohibited for consumption during Passover).

Similarly, most Americans are not familiar with Muslim ritual animal sacrifice on the annual Feast of the Sacrifice or even the dawn-till-dusk fast during the month of Ramadan on the Islamic calendar. The unfamiliarity in turn often breeds suspicions or worse—discrimination and hate crimes.

To make these practices more familiar to society at large, minority communities deeply appreciate when political leaders acknowledge these unique religious customs. Their participation sends a message that adherents of a minority faith are full members of the community and that their religious practices are welcome and not deserving of suspicion. A high-profile example of such acknowledgment is the annual menorah lighting that takes place in front of the White House. . . . The White House also typically hosts dinners for both Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the conclusion of Ramadan.

These official acts of “recognition” would be banned under the interpretation of the Constitution put forward by opponents of public religious displays. . . . A decision that requires the government to forgo any interaction, no matter how minor, with religion, will disproportionately hurt practitioners of minority faiths.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.