Yeshiva University Can Refuse to Recognize LGBTQ+ Club: Sotomayor
(CNN) — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed Friday night to temporarily block a lower court order that required Yeshiva University to recognize a "Pride Alliance" LGBTQ student club.The order from Sotomayor -- who has jurisdiction over the lower court in the case -- suggested that the full Supreme Court is still considering the issue and will issue a more permanent order at a later time.For now, the university is temporarily shielded from having to recognize the group.The case is complicated by threshold issues -- such as the fact that New York State appeals courts have yet to rule on the merits of the dispute -- which could be slowing down the court's considerations.Former and current students of the university brought the original challenge arguing that the school's position violated a New York public accommodation law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation.The case is the latest religious liberty controversy to come before the Supreme Court.Last term, the court's conservative majority ruled in favor of religious conservatives in two separate disputes and in 2021, the court sided with a Catholic foster care agency that refused to consider same-sex couples as potential foster parents.Justice Samuel Alito has repeatedly called for greater protections for the free exercise of religion including during a July speech in Rome. "Religious liberty is under attack in many places," Alito said.Yeshiva lost at the lower court level when a trial judge focused on whether the University qualified as a religious corporation within the meaning of the New York City Human Rights Law, a public accommodation regulation that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation.
