Religious Schools Should Receive State Funds for Special Education—Even in California

A group of Jewish parents and schools have taken to federal court to challenge a California law forbidding “sectarian” educational institutions from receiving money for special-education programs to which secular private schools are entitled. Michael A. Helfand explains their case:

Over the past two decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has not only made clear the First Amendment allows states to include religious schools in government-funding programs; it has also made clear that once a state makes funding generally available to private schools, excluding religious schools constitutes religious discrimination prohibited by the First Amendment.

As a result, the challenge to California’s legal regime is likely to ensure not only that Jewish institutions can work alongside the state to support special needs, but also that religious institutions cannot be discriminated against when it comes to government funding. Religious families with children with special needs will hopefully no longer have to choose between the care their children need and their religious observance.

For much of the 20th century, this sort of religious exclusion was viewed as constitutionally necessary in order to preserve separation between church and state. Under prevailing legal doctrine at the time, the Supreme Court viewed allowing government funds to flow to religious institutions as impermissibly entangling church and state.

But at the turn of the 21st century, the Supreme Court’s view began to shift. Instead of interpreting separation of church and state to prohibit such funding, the Supreme Court argued that such separation could be achieved simply by treating religious institutions neutrally. Thus, religious institutions should not receive more funding than similarly situated institutions; but if they received equal funding on equal terms as their secular counterparts, all was constitutionally kosher.

Read more at Forward

More about: American law, California, Freedom of Religion, Jewish education

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa