Yeshiva University pauses all student clubs after Supreme Court ruling on LGBTQ group

Yeshiva University, which is an orthodox Jewish University in New York, has announced that it will pause all student clubs a matter of days after the Supreme Court refused to block a lower court ruling that ordered the university to recognize the LQBTQ group YU Pride Alliance.

The University was also told they had to pursue two other legal routes in the lower courts before appealing to the Supreme Court. The university said that recognizing this group “would violate its sincere religious beliefs,” per ABC News.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the courts decision: “The First Amendment guarantees the right to the free exercise of religion, and if that provision means anything, it prohibits a State from enforcing its own preferred interpretation of Holy Scripture. Yet that is exactly what New York has done in this case, and it is disappointing that a majority of this Court refuses to provide relief.”

The university emailed both students and officials on Friday saying that it would “hold off on all undergraduate club activities while it immediately takes steps to follow the roadmap provided by the U.S. Supreme Court to protect YU’s religious freedom.”

The university’s President Rabbi Ari Berman also released a statement following the ruling.

“Yeshiva University simply seeks that same right of self-determination,” he said. “The Supreme Court has laid out the roadmap for us to find expedited relief and we will follow their instructions.”

Berman added that the university’s “commitment and love for our LGBTQ students are unshakeable.”

However, a lawyer representing the students shot back, calling the university’s stance divisive and “shameful.”

“The Pride Alliance seeks a safe space on campus, nothing more. By shutting down all club activities, the YU administration attempts to divide the student body, and pit students against their LGBT peers,” said the lawyer, Katie Rosenfeld.

Rosenfeld compared the university’s stance, “to 50 years ago when the city of Jackson, Mississippi, closed all public swimming pools rather than comply with court orders to desegregate.”