“Citing ‘Commitment to LGBTQ Equality,’ Yale Law School Defunds Students Working for Christian-Leaning Organizations”
by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – A decision by Yale Law School on March 25th will cut funding for certain summer fellowships to students whose employers have a narrower definition of gender identity, according to law student Aaron Haviland.
The decision comes in the wake of a controversy that erupted after an attorney from Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) spoke at the school, drawing the ire of the law school’s LGBTQ group.
LGBTQ students requested that the law school revoke funding to students working for Christian and other conservative organizations whose hiring practices do not include non-discrimination policies for sexual orientation and gender identity.
“The law school cannot prohibit a student from working for an employer who discriminates, but that is not a reason why Yale Law school should bear any obligation to fund that work,” said the school’s Public Interest Committee, which unanimously supported the decision.
Haviland, a former marine, expressed concern about the vagueness of the decision, noting that “Yale’s only assurances that the policy will be limited to hiring practices, and not applied to policy positions”–like traditional definitions of marriage included in an organization’s statement of faith–”are private emails sent to individual students.”
Christian students noted an atmosphere of increased hostility at the number one law school in the country last year when Yale students and professors protested the nomination of alumnus Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.