In a shocking twist of events, a lower court order that would have forced Yeshiva University to recognize an LGBT club as an official school-sanctioned organization was blocked at the last minute by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
According to the Washington Examiner, the liberal SCOTUS justice added that the ruling is temporary, and said the high court would shed additional light on the issue down the road. For now, however, Yeshiva administrators are free to block the group from forming on campus.
Given that Yeshiva, a private university, is described as an Orthodox Jewish research university, it shouldn't be surprising that an LGBT club would not be welcomed there. The club, Pride Alliance, scored an initial victory in the lower courts.
The Examiner noted: "Yeshiva University, a college established in 1886 that is considered one of the oldest Orthodox Jewish universities in the nation, filed the emergency request to the high court on Aug. 29, calling a judge's June decision in the New York Supreme Court First Judicial District an "unprecedented intrusion" into the university's sincere religious beliefs."
The social media reaction to Sotomayor's decision to allow the school to block the LGBT group temporarily garnered mixed reactions on social media.
It is not SCOTUS’ role to decide social and political issues!!! The temporary order by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees the judicial circuit that covers New York, suggests the full Supreme Court is giving consideration to Yeshiva’s request https://t.co/w0yAzxNK1C
— ann alexander (@annalexa1) September 10, 2022
Pride Alliance attorneys told the court last month, "While Yeshiva University can espouse its Torah values without interference, it may not deny certain students access to the non-religious resources it offers the entire student community on the basis of sexual orientation."
University officials disagreed, writing to the high court of the state court's previous ruling, "As a deeply religious Jewish university, Yeshiva cannot comply with that [state court] order because doing so would violate its sincere religious beliefs about how to form its undergraduate students in Torah values."
The case is the latest religious liberty test for the upcoming Supreme Court session.