Yeshiva University in New York City has once again banned its LGBTQ student club, saying the group’s actions are “antithetical” to the Jewish educational institution’s religious values. The decision comes two months after the school reached a settlement with students to recognize the group and end a yearslong legal dispute that at one point reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
The undergraduate club, which was formerly known as YU Pride Alliance, was renamed Hareni in March, when the settlement was reached. But both sides now say the other violated the terms of the agreement, which included a mandate that the club “not advocate against the Torah’s teachings” and a requirement that the university continue and enhance its sensitivity training and anti-discrimination policies.
“Recent actions and statements have indicated that Hareni is operating as a pride club under a different name and as such is antithetical to the Torah values of our yeshiva,” Rabbi Yosef Kalinsky, the dean of the university’s undergraduate Torah studies, said in a May 9 letter to students, which was published by The Yeshiva University Observer. “There is no place for such a club in yeshiva. As such, we are directing the Office of Student Life to discontinue this club.”
Kalinsky’s letter came one day after Hareni’s legal counsel sent a letter to a university attorney alleging that senior leaders at the school had made public statements “that display animus and hostility toward the University’s LGBTQ students and may violate the terms of the Settlement Agreement.”
The letter, shared publicly by The Yeshiva University Observer, cited several examples, including an April 6 essay by Rabbi Meyer Twersky that stated in part, “Identification with the L.G.B.T.Q acronym entails identification with a heretical, nihilistic philosophy which champions and celebrates all forms of sexual deviance.”
In a phone interview with NBC News on Wednesday, a Yeshiva spokesperson said the club’s members held an unsanctioned event and started using graphics, terminology, colors and logos that had been banned under the March agreement. The new LGBTQ club, the spokesperson suggested, was just the old club renamed.
When asked for comment on the university’s decision, Hareni sent an emailed statement to NBC News through the group’s attorney Max Selver at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP.
“We are deeply disappointed by the announcement of Hareni’s cancellation, which followed a letter from our legal team raising concerns that YU was violating the terms of our settlement—specifically through ongoing displays of animus and hostility that threaten the safety and well-being of LGBTQ students on campus,” the statement said. “That this effort ended not with dialogue, but with unilateral dissolution and hostility, only underscores how urgently LGBTQ students at YU need support, safety, and community. That need hasn’t gone away—and neither have we.”
Hareni did not comment on what steps, if any, it would take next.
Elizabeth Maline and The Associated Press contributed.
