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Article: The Yale five. (five Orthodox Jews being forced to conform to Yale rules)
- Article from:
- Commonweal
- Article date:
- July 17, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Life apart: A religious freedom?
There are five Orthodox Jews, all first-year students at Yale, who are challenging a rule that says they must live in Yale's mixed-sex dormitories. I wish them well. Their case is complicated by the fact that Yale is a private university which has the right to make its own rules, but the case has larger implications, and the argument the students are making is one that should matter to people who think religion is more than a matter of private taste.
Let me begin by saying that the legal case here is made somewhat more difficult by the fact that we aren't talking about a tax-supported place, and no one has an automatic right to ...