By: TJVNews.com

In a watershed moment for both religious institutions and LGBTQ student advocacy, Yeshiva University announced on Thursday that it will officially recognize an LGBTQ student club on campus—marking the end of a protracted and intensely scrutinized legal fight that has spanned several years and drawn national attention. As The New York Times has reported, this development signifies a major shift in the university’s position, one that carries broad implications for the ongoing tension between religious liberty and civil rights in higher education.

The decision by Yeshiva University—a flagship institution of Modern Orthodox Judaism with campuses in Manhattan and the Bronx—comes after years of refusal to recognize the LGBTQ group formerly known as the Yeshiva University Pride Alliance. The dispute escalated through state and federal courts, even reaching the U.S. Supreme Court, and became a high-profile test case for religious freedom advocacy groups and civil liberties organizations alike.

As the information provided in The New York Times report indicated, the university and the students reached a mutual settlement this week that not only brings litigation to a close but also establishes a new chapter of campus life. The newly recognized group will now be called Hareni, a name derived from a Hebrew phrase traditionally recited before prayer: “I hereby take upon myself to fulfill the commandment of loving your fellow as yourself.” The students themselves suggested this name as part of the agreement.

In its official statement, Yeshiva University clarified that the Hareni club “will seek to support LGBTQ students and their allies and will operate in accordance with the approved guidelines of Yeshiva University’s senior rabbis.” The administration emphasized that Hareni “will be run like other clubs on campus, all in the spirit of a collaborative and mutually supportive campus culture,” according to the report in The New York Times.

This conclusion represents a profound reversal for Yeshiva, which had spent years arguing that recognition of the club would violate the university’s religious mission. As The New York Times report noted, the university previously undertook extraordinary measures to block the group, including an unprecedented campus-wide suspension of all student clubs in an attempt to halt the LGBTQ group’s progress through the university’s student activities system.

That decision, widely criticized at the time, prompted backlash from elected officials and members of the public. Lawmakers warned that the university’s intransigence could threaten its access to public funding, a concern that loomed heavily over the litigation. Throughout the process, Yeshiva held firm in its defense of religious autonomy, arguing that as a faith-based institution, it should not be compelled by courts to endorse values that conflict with its religious teachings.

Yet, as The New York Times reported, the university’s latest statement includes a surprising twist. According to Hanan Eisenman, a Yeshiva University spokesman, the students who filed the lawsuit had ultimately agreed to a proposal first offered by the university in 2022. The New York Times report said that at that time, the university had attempted to introduce a compromise solution—a club rooted in Jewish law, intended as what it described as “an approved traditional Orthodox alternative to YU Pride Alliance.” However, students at the time rejected the idea, viewing it as insufficiently inclusive and overly constrained by religious doctrine.