The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in New York County Supreme Court.
Over the last few years, the students repeatedly lobbied the university’s administration to formally recognize a Gay-Straight Alliance club. The university, a prominent Modern Orthodox institution, has grappled with how to reconcile a traditional interpretation of Jewish law, which does not allow homosexual relations, with its engagement with the secular world.
Molly Meisels, a recent Yeshiva University graduate who led the effort for inclusion while enrolled, called the lawsuit “a last resort.” The suit asks the university to officially recognize the club as a student organization and to award damages to the plaintiffs.
“Queer students and allies at Yeshiva University have been meeting with administrators, applying for club status, sharing our stories with rabbinical figures and advocating internally for years,” Meisels told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “When we realized that our efforts were for naught, we knew that filing a lawsuit was the last way for us to succeed in our endeavors.”
Yeshiva University registers as a nonsectarian corporation, and has received “hundreds of millions of dollars” in state funds and benefits, according to the suit. The students say that the school should not “pick and choose which New York City laws apply.”
On Tuesday, 48 faculty members of Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law sent a letter to the president of the university, condemning Y.U.’s refusal to allow LGBTQ students to form a club. “Discrimination against a student organization solely because of its focus on LGBTQ+ issues has no place in a university that holds itself out as a community committed to the flourishing and equal dignity of all its members,” the letter reads. The faculty members also wrote that the university’s decision is “unlawful under federal, state, and city civil rights laws.”
The university did not respond to a request for comment.