Yeshiva University to Recognize New LGBTQ Group as Legal Fight Continues
Yeshiva University will allow a new LGBTQ organization to operate on its campus, the university announced Monday, as the legal fight over a predecessor group, YU Pride Alliance, drags on.
Yeshiva launched the new group, Kol Yisrael Areivim, after the Supreme Court declined to block an injunction ordering that the YU Pride Alliance be recognized by the university.
In a Monday press conference, the Becket Fund’s Religious Liberty executive director, Montse Alvarado, greeted the news as a “really interesting and beautiful development from an internal institutional perspective for the university.”
The decision is compliant with Yeshiva’s core Torah principles and was endorsed by the senior campus rabbi, the university said.
“This club is supposed to provide students with a space to grow within their personal journeys, navigating the formidable challenges that they face in living a fully committed uncompromisingly, authentic halachic life within Orthodox communities… This is the university’s way of pastoring and caring for, in a compassionate way, the LGBTQ students, but also drawing the very important line about what it means to be an Orthodox Jew and to be part of Yeshiva University,” Alvarado noted.
Senior counsel, Eric Baxter, called the lawsuit “unfortunate” because it impinged on YU’s character as a “religious university” and thus could deprive it of making “religious decisions that are central to who it is.”
Yeshiva changed its legal status in 1970 from a religious to a secular institution, which opened the school up to public-grant funding. As a result of this change, Pride Alliance believes Yeshiva can no longer invoke the First Amendment for protection of religious freedoms.
Rather than recognize the Pride Alliance, the college decided to suspend all student group activities until they could process “the roadmap provided by the US Supreme Court to protect YU’s religious freedom,” a school email read. The move was criticized by some as counter-productive and regressive, while Yeshiva supporters believe it was important to ensure compliance with the new ruling.
The announcement, though, is not an endorsement of the Pride Alliance. “It’s not a recognition of this club or an approval of this club in any way. This is a completely different endeavor,” Alvarado said during the press conference. The newly formed club has been approved by Rabbi Hershel Schachter, a senior religious figure at Yeshiva.
A press release sent to students on Monday further explained Yeshiva’s rationale: “Within this association, students will be able to gather, share their experiences, host events, and support one another while benefiting from the full resources of the Yeshiva community – all within the framework of Halacha – as all other student clubs.”
A school FAQ publicized simultaneously explained Yeshiva’s perspective on the matter. “We are very clear about the type of environment that exists on our undergraduate campus, and every undergraduate student who makes the personal choice to come to Yeshiva is choosing this religiously driven environment and curriculum, instead of other college experiences,” the letter states.
However, Baxter maintained that YU would be continuing to fight the lawsuit given its characterization of the university as a “public accommodation” which would disqualify the school from making decisions influenced by religion.
Yeshiva has approximately 6,000 students that study on four campuses across the Bronx and Manhattan.
