Yeshiva cancels all student clubs in effort to shutter LGBT student group

Reuters reports that Yeshiva wrote an email to students saying, "the university will hold off on all undergraduate club activities while it immediately takes steps to follow the roadmap provided by the US Supreme Court to protect YU's religious freedom."

Yeshiva University, an Orthodox Jewish college in Manhattan, has contested that it is a "religious corporation" which would grant it the right to bar the YU Pride Alliance from being an official school organization. The group has unofficially existed since 2018.

On June 14, New York County Supreme Court Judge Lynn Kotler ruled that due to the school having been chartered as a nonreligious organization, it must be in compliance with the New York City Human Rights Law. In a previous ruling Kotler said the Jewish institution must "immediately grant plaintiff YU Pride Alliance the full equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges afforded to all other student groups at Yeshiva University."

She also ordered that the school be "permanently restrained from continuing their refusal to officially recognize the YU Pride Alliance as a student organization because of the members’ sexual orientation or gender and/or YU Pride Alliance’s status, mission, and/or activities on behalf of LGBTQ students."

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday against the Jewish university's request to put Judge Lynn Kotler's decision on pause concerning the student group. As a result, the university will now need to go through the New York court system again.

Mark Rienzi, president of The Becket Fund which is representing YU said before the ruling, "The stakes couldn’t be higher, not just for Yeshiva but for the country. That’s why people of many different faiths filed briefs asking the court to protect Yeshiva. If Yeshiva can’t even make religious decisions on its own campus, then no religious group is safe from government control."