'Yale Five' lose appeal in court

At many colleges today, coed living arrangements are the norm. At such colleges, Yale among them, many students accept and even enjoy living with members of the opposite sex, and such conditions rarely seem to arouse concern or distress.

Four years ago, however, a group of five Yale students, all of whom were Orthodox Jews, did have a problem with Yale's housing situation. According to these students, called the "Yale Five" by the media, living with members of the opposite sex before marriage violated the standards of modesty dictated by their religion. The Yale Five brought a lawsuit against the University, asking to be exempted from requirement that they live on campus during their freshman and sophomore years. The lawsuit was overturned four years ago, and recently the group made headlines again when it lost its case in an appellate court.

According to the court, the students were aware of Yale's housing policy before attending the University, and thus could have attended another school where single-sex housing was available.

The opinion set forth by the appeals court seems to be echoed by many Yale students. "When the Yale Five chose to attend Yale, they were aware of Yale's housing policy," Tamar Rudnick, TC '04, said. "There are lots of other good schools that offer single-sex housing policies."

Shari Gottlieb, PC '03, and Randi Levine, BK '02, co-presidents of the Yale Hillel, agree with this claim. "There are many reasons to choose a college, and how the housing fits with personal needs is one of them," they said.

President Richard Levin, GRD '74, expressed a similar view. "Why come to a university like this one if you won't open your mind to new ideas and new perspectives?" he said. "This is not a place where people who close themselves off to the world can thrive."

Levin also stressed the importance of residential colleges at Yale. "We're pretty committed to idea of people getting to know people different than themselves," Levin said. "That's why we sort freshman-year roommates randomly and believe so strongly in the residential college system. It's a philosophy of undergraduate education that has worked well for a long time."

Gottlieb and Levine agree. "Yale works hard to accommodate the varied lifestyles of its students, and it is difficult when there is a conflict between Yale's philosophy and that of its students, but to our knowledge, Yale housing does not currently pose a problem to the Yale Jewish community," they said.

While it seems that the majority of students agree with Yale's decision not to release the students from their housing requirement, some did express concern over the issue. "Students shouldn't have to choose between attending Yale and following the mandates of their religion," one sophomore said. "And since the students ended up living off campus, even during their freshman and sophomore years, Yale's refusal to excuse them from housing regulations didn't help them to become part of the community anyway."

Levin did express some dismay that the students moved off campus. Paying for Yale housing and living off campus is "certainly not encouraged," according to Levin, "but I actually don't know of anyone else doing it besides the Yale Five."

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