Justice Sotomayor Answers Yeshiva University’s Prayers

The emergency stay Justice Sonia Sotomayor handed Yeshiva University in the hours before the Jewish Sabbath began Friday will ensure that the school will not have to recognize the “Pride Alliance” student group as the semester gets underway. The emergency stay — conveyed in one brief note — of a New York state court ruling compelling Yeshiva to accord the group full privileges prefigures what could be a full-scale tilt before the high court, which will eventually issue a more permanent ruling.For now, the school will not have to offer “full and equal accommodations” to the Pride Alliance. Justice Sotomayor’s siding with Yeshiva is a welcome win after the school failed to convince Empire State courts that it is a “religious corporation,” which would grant it an exemption from anti-discrimination rules written into the New York City Human Rights Law. Judge Lynn Kotler saw its mission as primarily educational, not religious.The Pride Alliance describes itself as comprised of “LGBTQ+ students and allies” that aims to “provide a supportive space at YU for students of all sexual orientations & gender identities.” Yeshiva said its presence is “inconsistent with the school’s Torah values and the religious environment it seeks to maintain.”As part of its appeal, Yeshiva asked the court to reconsider the precedent of Employment Division v. Smith, which held that religious beliefs do not trump “an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate,” like the New York City Human Rights Law at issue here.Reconsidering Smith will have to wait for a full review of the case. Appellate courts in New York, while refusing to lift the order to recognize the Pride Alliance that was imposed by the trial court, have not yet ruled on the underlying merits of the case. It is likely that the high court would wait for those judgments to be entered before weighing in with a “further order.” Yeshiva’s president, Rabbi Ari Berman, was “pleased with Justice Sotomayor’s ruling which protects our religious liberty and identity as a leading faith-based academic institution.”The vice president and senior counsel of Becket Law, which litigated the case, expressed gratitude that “Justice Sotomayor stepped in to protect Yeshiva’s religious liberty.”

Justice Sotomayor Answers Yeshiva University’s Prayers

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