Yeshiva University, a deeply religious Jewish university in New York City, has just filed an emergency application in the Supreme Court in an urgent effort to maintain its religious autonomy. (Yeshiva’s application is, in the alternative, a petition for writ of certiorari and stay.)
The particular dispute arises from an effort by Yeshiva students to create an undergraduate LGBTQ club—and to do so precisely in order to alter Yeshiva’s religious environment—but the issue would be exactly the same if, say, other students wanted to form a Jews for Jesus club: Does Yeshiva have the religious freedom to implement its beliefs about how to form its undergraduate students in Torah values?
A New York trial court ruled that the New York City Human Rights Law requires Yeshiva to recognize an official Pride Alliance club. It has entered a permanent injunction against Yeshiva, and New York’s higher courts have denied Yeshiva’s requests for emergency relief. The club-application process is now open, so absent emergency relief from the Supreme Court, the permanent injunction will require Yeshiva to approve the club “immediately.”
Yeshiva explains in its application:
Yeshiva is the world’s premier Torah-based institution of higher education. In Hebrew, the word “yeshiva” literally means a school for studying Talmud. All Yeshiva undergraduate students are required to engage intense religious studies, with many receiving up to four and a half hours of Talmud instruction each day. And the entire undergraduate experience is designed to form students in the Jewish faith: the laws of Shabbat and Kashrut are strictly observed on campus; there are separate men’s and women’s campuses; students are expected to dress and behave consistently with Torah values; the campuses are adorned with religious imagery and symbolism; and the affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary is integrated into the men’s undergraduate campus and programs. Yeshiva has determined, based on consultation with its Roshei Yeshiva—who opine on Jewish law for Jews all over the world—that an official Pride Alliance club, as described by Plaintiffs and as understood by the culture at large, would be inconsistent with Yeshiva’s religious environment and Torah values.
Yeshiva compellingly argues that the lower court’s order tramples its First Amendment autonomy as a religious institution. In addition, the ruling against Yeshiva “deepens an existing split” over how the Free Exercise precedent of Employment Division v. Smith (1990) applies: i.e., “whether the existence of comparable categorical exemptions suffices to negate general applicability under Smith.”
Either Justice Sotomayor (the circuit justice to whom Yeshiva has formally submitted its application) or the Court as a whole (if Sotomayor, instead of granting the application on her own, refers it to the Court) should grant Yeshiva’s application forthwith.