WURZWEILER SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK

YESHIVA UNIVERSITY

 2495 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10033

General Information Admissions Fax

646-592-6800 833-241-4723 212-960-0821

Dear President Berman,

We are writing to express our disagreement with the decision made to seek redress from the opinion rendered by the lower court regarding undergraduate students’ right to form an LGBTQ club on campus. This decision to bring the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court has caused significant emotional distress to our faculty, students, alumni, and our graduates at large.

YU is a university operating in the spirit of Torah values along with democratic values based on honoring and valuing difference. However, we are not a place of worship per se. We operate in the humanistic traditions of western democracies, and we are proud to do this within the walls of YU and its value of human dignity.

But psychological evidence-based science and knowledge have informed us that LGBTQ is neither a psychiatric nor amoral defect. That in fact, this is a vulnerable, marginalized population that deserves the utmost care and support by mental health professionals and educators alike. We must surmise that within our walls we have LGBTQ faculty, family members, children of deans, rabbis, faculty, and administrators who identify with and are allies to the LGBTQ community.  

This attempt to by-pass the lower court decision has put the University in a very public and discordant situation with our values just now when we are literally courting our new enrollments and returning students, many of whom are LGBTQ (and allies of LGBTQ), and most of whom would defend the full rights of those individuals. We at WSSW have worked extremely hard to ensure our reputation in the broader mental health and social work community as consistent with our professional code of ethics of caring for and including all diverse and vulnerable members of society, and we have succeeded. This action and the subsequent publicity it has wrought, endangers our standing, our ability to attract students, faculty and even possibly securing a permanent Dean. 

We respectfully submit that we find this action to be ill-advised and destructive to the name and brand of the University across the country and globe. We have done everything we can to support the University's values, as well as our professional social work code of ethics and the values of democracy that has codified many of those values. Yeshiva University should be a welcoming environment to all who have felt marginalized, been discriminated against, and are seeking a place to learn marked by a community of respect and dignity. 

We respectfully ask that this request for a stay to the Supreme Court be removed. 

Sincerely, 

Dr. Akerman 

Dr. Auerbach 

Dr. Becker 

Dr. Beckerman 

Dr. Beder 

Dr. Blackman

Dr. Conley 

Dr. Flaherty Dr. Henshaw Dr. Herrera 

Dr. Knapp 

Dr. Lane 

Dr. Lee 

Dr. Levy 

Dr. Mason 

Dr. Morrissey Dr. Skolnik 

Dr. Stein 

Dr. Toumarides Dr. Vyshedsky