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Yeshiva University has reneged on plans to allow an LGBTQ+ club after agreeing to do so in a settlement agreement two months ago, The New York Times reported.
The agreement announced in March seemed to end a years-long legal battle between the Orthodox Jewish university and its unrecognized LGBTQ+ group, the YU Pride Alliance. At the time of the settlement the university agreed to recognize an LGBTQ+ student group under a new name, Hareni, and with new guidelines.
But in a letter to the campus community Friday, the university alleged that Hareni’s “recent actions and statements” indicated it was “operating as a pride club under a different name and as such is antithetical to the Torah values of our yeshiva, as well as in violation of the approved guidelines and of the terms of the settlement agreement.” (Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, previously said, less than a week after the settlement, that “pride” clubs still weren’t permitted on campus, and the new club would function within the bounds of Jewish law.)
Hareni said in a response that its members were “deeply disappointed by the announcement of Hareni’s cancellation,” noting that the news came just a day after the lawyers who represented the YU Pride Alliance sent a letter to university administrators.
The letter accused university leaders of making public statements “that display animus and hostility toward the University’s LGBTQ students” and that “may violate the terms of the Settlement Agreement signed by the parties,” including the university's guidelines for the club.
Those guidelines, shared in April, prohibited the club from holding social or recreational events or using pride flags, symbols, and emojis or the term “Pride Club.” The club was also required to put a disclaimer on all materials that its role is to “support to those who seek to fully maintain traditional halachic standards of sexual morality,” which implies abstaining from same-sex relations. (In an op-ed for the student newspaper, the club’s co-presidents refused to use the disclaimer. The group also held an event in May.)
Senior rabbis at the university also came out since the agreement with multiple statements disavowing the club and taking issue with the term “LGBTQ.”
The university’s counsel told the students’ lawyers Friday that the university agreed to a new club, not a continuation of the YU Pride Alliance, and wouldn’t allow breaches of its guidelines.
“For these reasons, as you may have seen, the [senior rabbis] have now determined that the Hareni club will be discontinued,” the letter read.
