Yeshiva University Agrees to Recognize LGBTQ Student Club
The Orthodox university has settled a lawsuit brought by organizers of an LGBTQ student group, agreeing to recognize it as an official club.
Yeshiva University announced that it had reached a settlement with an LGBTQ student-run club that the university, for years, had refused to recognize as an official campus organization.
In the surprise move, the Orthodox Jewish educational institution said that it would end litigation related to its refusal to recognize the group, which it initially claimed was due to religious objections.
As part of the settlement, the club — formerly known as the Yeshiva University Pride Alliance — would be renamed “Hareni” and would be allowed to operate with the same rights and privileges guaranteed to other student groups.
Hareni will be allowed to publicly use the term “LGBTQ+” in communications and promotional materials, access university resources, and hold events on campus, such as charitable projects, movie and discussion nights, panel discussions, and networking events. The club will be allowed to select its leadership independently without interference from the university.
The Pride Alliance had previously sued the university in 2021, demanding to be recognized as an official campus student group. The university balked at the idea, arguing that granting an LGBTQ student group official recognition violated its right to religious freedom and that it should be exempt from New York’s civil rights laws due to being a religious institution.
Critics argued that Yeshiva University has more in common with religiously-affiliated colleges and universities like Fordham University or Notre Dame University than with Christian seminaries that are exempt from nondiscrimination laws because they train priests.
A lower court sided with the Pride Alliance, as did a Manhattan Supreme Court judge.
The university appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected the university’s request to block the lower court rulings on a 5-4 decision — although some conservative members of the high court argued that they should have intervened immediately. The majority did say, however, that the university could appeal once the case had fully been vetted in state court.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, the university suspended all student clubs rather than recognize the Pride Alliance.
The student group offered to temporarily stay the Supreme Court’s decision to allow other student activities to resume, a proposal that the university accepted.
The university also created a school-sanctioned LGBTQ group, which the Pride Alliance called a “sham,” accusing the school of attempting to deflect from its ongoing legal battles.
A New York appeals court subsequently ruled that the university must recognize the LGBTQ student group, setting the stage for what many believed would be a series of appeals heading back to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The university did not explain why it agreed to settle the case or why it reversed its long-held opposition to recognizing the student-run LGBTQ club.
In a statement to the New York Times, university spokesperson Hanan Eisenman claimed that the students behind the LGBTQ club agreed to a proposal Yeshiva made in 2022 that the club be “grounded” in Jewish religious law.
“Our students’ well-being is always our primary concern,” he said. “We are pleased that our current undergraduate students will be leading the club announced today, which is the same club approved by our senior rabbis two and a half years ago.”
But Zak Sawyer, a spokesman for the plaintiffs, said that the settlement goes far beyond the 2022 proposal, noting that the previous university-sponsored LGBTQ group “was created without student input, had no members, held no events and never existed outside of a press release.”
“Hareni has secured written guarantees ensuring it has the same rights and privileges as other student clubs, including access to campus spaces, official student event calendars, and the ability to use ‘LGBTQ’ in its public materials — none of which existed under YU’s prior ‘initiative,'” Sawyer told the Times.
“I think this will really show to other people that there is no separation between being queer and being a Jew and that you are allowed to be a queer Jew on campus at Yeshiva University,” Hayley Goldberg, one of the club’s co-presidents, told the Times.
“The fact that this is happening very much within the guidelines of Yeshiva is significant,” Co-President Schneur Friedman told the newspaper. “If this can happen here, it has wider implications for the Orthodox Jewish community as a whole. Even if there are compromises, it has a wide effect, which is very exciting.”
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