In the past few years, U.S. courts have been overturning laws and state-government decisions that prevent public funds from supporting religious institutions engaged in educational or other activities. Tim Rosenberger and Nicole Stelle Garnett explain the latest legal victory for religious freedom:

Loffman v. California Department of Education was brought by Orthodox Jewish families who sought to admit their disabled children to private Jewish schools under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act but found themselves thwarted by California on the grounds that the schools were “sectarian.” In a sharply worded opinion, the court rejected California’s argument and instead sided with the families, affirming their constitutional right to access public benefits without sacrificing their faith commitments.

The Loffman verdict is not just a legal win for the families involved; it’s a strike at the heart of California’s pervasive and unconstitutional practice of discriminating against religious institutions and believers. California law contains an array of rules that systematically discriminate against religious institutions, barring them from participating in public programs.

Consider a few examples. The state bars homeschooling parents who work with independent-study charter schools from including any religious content in their children’s customized curriculum. It also excludes religious schools from publicly funded pre-K, teacher-diversity, work-study, and teacher affordable-housing programs. California even prohibits school districts from contracting with “sectarian” hospitals to instruct patients with special needs. While the Ninth Circuit’s Loffman decision clarifies that such policies violate the Free Exercise Clause, they nevertheless remain on the books.

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.