Sotomayor blocks lower court order that would force Yeshiva University to recognize LGBT club

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a stay on Friday blocking a lower court decision that would have forced Yeshiva University in Manhattan to provide official recognition to an LGBT student club, The Washington Post and The New York Times report.

"Sotomayor is the justice who reviews emergency applications from the New York region," according to the Post.

A New York state Supreme Court panel in Manhattan ruled in June that the Modern Orthodox Jewish university had, in a pair of 1967 amendments to its charter, declared itself "an educational corporation ... organized and operated exclusively for educational purposes" and therefore could not claim a religious exemption. Yeshiva called the decision "obviously wrong" and urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

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Sotomayor stayed the state court ruling "pending further order of the undersigned or of the court," suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court could take up the school's case. The Times notes that the court "has taken an increasingly broad view of religious freedom in recent years" and that "petitioners in religious freedom cases have almost always prevailed" since Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court in 2020, cementing its 6-3 conservative majority.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities have all filed briefs supporting Yeshiva, according to the Times.