A tenuous settlement between Yeshiva University and a student LGBTQ group unraveled last week when the school revoked its approval of the newly formed club, JTA reports.
A YU spokesperson told The Commentator that the club had been officially shut down “because of numerous and blatant violations of club guidelines and the recent Settlement Agreement.”
Earlier this year, Yeshiva University agreed to settle with YU Pride Alliance, officially recognizing the LGBTQ student group with a new name, “Hareni.” The parties’ agreement, which we covered here, ended years of litigation that began when the flagship Modern Orthodox Jewish university refused to recognize the group on religious grounds.
We covered the long-running court battle between YU and the student Pride Alliance here:
The parties’ settlement now hangs in the balance. In a memorandum announcing YU’s decision, the university’s Roshei Yeshiva (rabbinic leaders) say the agreed-upon club “was designed to support students who are striving to live a fully committed, uncompromising authentic halachic life within our communities, under traditional Orthodox auspices.”
However, YU’s leaders say the new club has shown itself to be the same as the old one, rebranded: “Hareni is 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. There is no place for such a club in yeshiva.”
YU’s announcement came a day after Hareni’s lawyers wrote to the school expressing “deep concern” about statements by university leaders that made them feel “unwelcome and unsafe” and that violated the terms of the settlement agreement:
“Since the Settlement Agreement was signed on March 17, 2025, University leaders have stated that they ’emphatically reject’ the ‘ideology, lifestyle, and behaviors which the LGBTQ term represents’; that Hareni must include a ‘sexual morality’ disclaimer on all of its ‘materials, communications, and publications’; and that the ‘L.G.B.T.Q. acronym entails’ a ‘heretical, nihilistic philosophy that champions and celebrates all forms of sexual deviance.’”
They’re not wrong. However, YU’s lawyers say it’s the new club that’s in breach of the agreed-upon settlement, in which “they committed to be bound, like all student clubs, by Yeshiva’s religious authorities, the Roshei Yeshiva.”
“Yet, since the announcement of the club … your clients have misrepresented the club, ignored the guidance of the rabbis, violated the rules of the Office of Student Life, and have publicly stated that they will not follow the rabbis’ direction as to how to keep this club true to its core mission,” YU’s lawyers say.
The problem is that Hareni has held itself out to the community as the same “pride” club as before, only now, with YU’s imprimatur. “Although we entered into this agreement in good faith to create a space for our students that would assist them in their personal journeys, Hareni from the start misrepresented the club, claiming and acting from the beginning of its founding that it is simply the Pride Alliance under a new name,” YU’s lawyers say in the letter.
To take one example: “on the newly rebranded YU Pride Alliance Instagram account … the former co-presidents of YU Pride Alliance announced that ‘we [YU Pride Alliance] are now an official club at YU’ and ‘will go forward using the club name Hareni.’ They closed the post with a Pride flag emoji and the words ‘[w]ith pride.’”
For their part, Hareni’s student leaders were defiant. In an op-ed published in the school paper last week, they threw down the gauntlet:
What we will not be doing as a club is writing the egregious statement, “This club is for students who seek to fully maintain traditional halachic [Jewish legal]standards of sexual morality as defined by the Shulchan Aruch [Code of Jewish Law]” on our posters and communications. Equating an identity with sexual immorality looks past us as a people. … To imply that an identity poses a threat to halachic morality … fosters a culture of exclusion, judgement [sic] and shame rather than building one of compassion, learning, and mutual respect.
Such statements, YU’s lawyers say, “are obviously inconsistent with [Hareni’s] commitment … to ‘run’ the Club ‘in accordance with the approved guidelines’ of the Roshei Yeshiva.”
For now, the parties are reportedly at an impasse, though they aren’t back in court—yet. In their respective letters, both agreed to a meeting in the coming days to reconcile their differences under the settlement agreement.
It’s hard to see how they will.
Because, no matter what new name they give it, the LGBTQ club is a “pride” club. And for YU, whether “pride” is allowed under Jewish law is “quintessentially a religious question, one that must be decided on an ongoing basis by the Roshei Yeshiva”—not by college undergrads.
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