From Accounting to Zoology, undergrads at New York City’s Yeshiva University can pick and choose from 87 student organizations to join and engage with fellow students. There’s the Alexander Hamilton Society, the College Diabetes Network, Engineering Club, Jewish Activism Club, Rubik’s Cube Club, Skiing + Snowboarding Club, College Democrats, and College Republicans, but there is not an LGBTQ club.
Nor will there be, if Yeshiva University has its way. And as of Friday at 12:24 PM, there are effectively no longer 87 other clubs, at least for now.
Rather than accept a U.S. Supreme Court decision that ordered the 136-year old private Orthodox Jewish university, chartered by the State of New York, to follow a state court’s ruling which directed it to recognize its LGBTQ students’ organization, Yeshiva University administrators via email announced to its students, “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.”
In other words, all clubs are effectively shuttered, for now.
“Yeshiva University is putting all club activities on hold while it presses on w[ith] its quest for constitutional protection from recognizing the club,” reports The Economist’s Steven Mazie, who covers the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Yeshiva University suspends all clubs, which students pay for, as it tries to block its Pride club,” reports The Times of Israel editor Luke Tress.
Calling it “the latest escalation in the Orthodox Jewish school’s attempt to avoid recognizing an LGBTQ campus group,” The Forward reports, “Yeshiva University announced Friday it was suspending all student clubs.”
The email to students, The Forward adds, “did not state how long the suspension would last, though the holiday period generally referred to as the chaggim does not end this year until the middle of October.”
“The YU Commentator, the student newspaper of the YU boys’ campus, reported Friday that anonymous administration sources said university officials were considering dissolving all clubs and student organizations to avoid recognizing the YU Pride Alliance as an official campus club,” The Forward adds.
Yeshiva University argues recognizing the LGBTQ students’ group would violate it religious beliefs and Jewish law.
Legal experts suggest if Yeshiva again brings its case, this far-right Supreme Court will grant its request to not recognize its LGBTQ students’ club.
Image via Shutterstock