Last week, the Department of Education announced its intention to a repeal a 2020 rule formulated to safeguard campus religious groups. The Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty explains its objections to this move:

As currently written, [the rules] expressly protect the right of religious student groups to reserve their leadership positions for individuals who share the groups’ religious beliefs and practices. The department’s proposed rule would completely remove that protection. This would leave religious minorities, especially those that might be unpopular, to the whims of campus majorities.

In an attempt to soften the blow . . . the notice of proposed rulemaking claims that “rescinding these regulations would not affect” schools’ obligations to “comply with First Amendment guarantees.” We find that language highly ambiguous. . . .

A plain reading of the notice of proposed rulemaking forces us to believe that the department intends to deprive religious students of vital protections. . . . Contrary to the proposed rule’s assurances, current First Amendment jurisprudence is not an adequate substitute for the existing regulations’ protection. Existing Supreme Court precedent is ambiguous and has led to confusion that leaves religious students vulnerable. Currently, this department’s regulations are the clearest and most dependable protection for such students. In fact, the notice of proposed rulemaking surprisingly cites the uncertainty of judicial remedies as one of the reasons why the department is revoking the regulations.

On June 3, an Egyptian policeman crossed the border into Israel and killed three soldiers. Jonathan Schanzer and Natalie Ecanow urge President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to respond by visiting the Jewish state as a show of goodwill:

Such a dramatic gesture is not without precedent: in 1997, a Jordanian soldier opened fire on a group of Israeli schoolgirls visiting the “Isle of Peace,” a parcel of farmland previously under Israeli jurisdiction that Jordan leased back to Israel as part of the Oslo peace process. In a remarkable display of humanity, King Hussein of Jordan, who had only three years earlier signed a peace agreement with Israel, traveled to the Jewish state to mourn with the families of the seven girls who died in the massacre.

That massacre unfolded as a diplomatic cold front descended on Jerusalem and Amman. . . . Yet a week later, Hussein flipped the script. “I feel as if I have lost a child of my own,” Hussein lamented. He told the parents of one of the victims that the tragedy “affects us all as members of one family.”

While security cooperation [between Cairo and Jerusalem] remains strong, the bilateral relationship is still rather frosty outside the military domain. True normalization between the two nations is elusive. A survey in 2021 found that only 8 percent of Egyptians support “business or sports contacts” with Israel. With a visit to Israel, Sisi can move beyond the cold pragmatism that largely defines Egyptian-Israeli relations and recast himself as a world figure ready to embrace his diplomatic partners as human beings. At a personal level, the Egyptian leader can win international acclaim for such a move rather than criticism for his country’s poor human-rights record.