Dear Commons Community,

On July 12, a dozen unions representing 115,000 freight railroad workers voted to strike over pay and labor conditions, a move that would disrupt supply chains and imperil travel, since Amtrak shares track with freight carriers in much of the country.

President Biden, once known as “Amtrak Joe” for his practice of riding the train between Washington, D.C., where he served as a U.S. senator for more than three decades, and his home in Delaware, stepped in to offer assistance in negotiations. Throughout his career, Biden has been a supporter of labor unions, an alliance that helped carry him into the White House.

Now he was facing the first railroad strike since 1992, at a time when multiple economic crises – flight delays, shortages, inflation – were besieging his administration. A shutdown of freight rail was suddenly a disaster at once unthinkable and real. As reported by Yahoo News and other meida.

On July 15, Biden appointed an emergency board, which would have 30 days to come up with a deal between railroad owners and workers. That was followed by another 30-day period during which the two parties would negotiate over the board’s proposal. But as the deadline of Sept. 15 approached, the parties remained at loggerheads.

A strike now appeared not only likely but inevitable. In preparation, Amtrak on Wednesday canceled long-distance trains. A fresh round of supply chain disruptions loomed.

And then, in the early morning hours of Thursday, weeks of frustration and disagreement yielded an unlikely outcome: a deal. In a 5 a.m. statement, the White House announced a “tentative agreement” that will give rail workers 24% pay raises over the next several years, $5,000 bonuses, as well as a modest sick leave allowance.

“This is a big win for America,” Biden said in remarks in the Rose Garden on Thursday morning, as the White House basked in the relief of last-minute success.

The agreement was the product of a furious effort by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to convince the railroads and their employees to come to a consensus for the sake of the nation’s economic recovery.

A White House official described Biden as “engaged and briefed throughout” the negotiations, which were led by Walsh. Starting on Wednesday, the talks would last for 20 hours, well beyond the proverbial 11th hour.

As the talks began, Biden headed to Detroit for the city’s annual automotive trade show. In his remarks there, he said nothing about the impending strike. It also went unmentioned in his speech at a Democratic fundraiser in Detroit later that afternoon.

Meanwhile, administration officials continued their feverish negotiations. Buttigieg – himself a new Michigander – was also in Detroit, though he spent most of his time at the auto show on “dozens and dozens of phone calls” related to the railroad strike, according to a senior administration official. The official described the calls as “intense.”

The full-court press for a deal intensified when Biden called into the negotiations around 9 p.m. “He pushed the negotiators once again to recognize the harm that would hit families, farmers and businesses if there was a shutdown. The economic impacts could have been significant,” the White House official told Yahoo News, describing Biden’s involvement as “crucial.”

Although Biden is caricatured by conservative media as absent-minded, he is, in fact, a micromanager who relies on a small circle of advisers and has high regard for his own views, forged during a half-century in Washington. But his involvement has sometimes proved counterproductive, for example during last year’s protracted and unfruitful negotiations over Build Back Better, his social spending plan.

This time was different. “Things were looking up around midnight,” according to the senior administration official, with the scope of the deal coming into focus between the hours of 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.

“They earned and deserve these benefits,” Biden said on Thursday morning of the rail workers. “This agreement is validation that unions and management can work together — can work together — for the benefit of everyone.”

Great work on the part of Biden and his staff!

Tony

Raymond Dearie

Dear Commons Community,

Raymond Dearie, a veteran New York  jurist, was selected  to serve as an independent arbiter and review records seized during the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence in Mar-a-Lago last month.

In her order, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon granted Dearie access to the entire cache of documents seized from the property even though the department had said the arbiter shouldn’t be permitted to inspect the batch of classified records.  She also refused a Justice Department request to lift her temporary prohibition on the department’s use of the roughly 100 classified records that were taken during the Aug. 8 search.

The Justice Department is expected to contest the judge’s order to a federal appeals court. It had given Cannon until Thursday to put on hold her order barring the continued review of classified records, and said it would ask the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene if she did not do so then.  As reported by the Associated Press.

The selection of Dearie, a former federal prosecutor who for years served as the chief judge of the federal court based in Brooklyn, came after both the Justice Department and Trump’s lawyers made clear that they would be satisfied with his appointment as a so-called special master.

In that role, Dearie will be responsible for reviewing the documents taken during the search of Mar-a-Lago and segregating out any that may be covered by claims of privilege. It is not clear how long the work will take but the special master process has already delayed the investigation, with Cannon directing the Justice Department to temporarily pause core aspects of its probe.

The Justice Department is investigating the hoarding of top-secret materials and other classified documents at the Florida property after Trump left office. The FBI says it recovered more than 11,000 documents from the home during its search, including roughly 100 with classification markings.

Trump’s lawyers had asked last month for a judge to name a special master to do an independent review of the records and segregate any that may be covered by claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege. The Justice Department argued the appointment was unnecessary, saying it had already done its own review and Trump had no right to raise executive privilege claims that ordinarily permit the president to withhold certain information from the public and Congress.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, disagreed and directed both sides to name potential candidates for the role. She also ordered the Justice Department to halt its review of the documents for investigative purposes until “further Court order” or until the special master completes their review.

The Trump team recommended either Dearie or a Florida lawyer for the job. The Justice Department said that, in addition to the two retired judges whose names it submitted, it would also be satisfied with a Dearie appointment.

Dearie served as the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York from 1982 to 1986, at which point he was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Ronald Reagan. He has also served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorizes Justice Department wiretap applications in investigations involving suspected agents of a foreign power.

He took senior status in 2011, but the Justice Department has said he remains active and had indicated to officials that he was available for the position and could work expeditiously if appointed to it.

Tony

Click on to enlarge.

Dear Commons Community,

President Joe Biden’s popularity improved substantially from his lowest point this summer, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Support for Biden recovered from a low of 36% in July to 45%, driven in large part by a rebound in support from Democrats just two months before the November midterm elections. During a few bleak summer months when gasoline prices peaked and lawmakers appeared deadlocked, the Democrats faced the possibility of blowout losses against Republicans.  As reported by the Associated Press.

Their outlook appears better after notching a string of legislative successes that left more Americans ready to judge the president on his preferred terms: “Don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.”

The president’s approval rating remains underwater, with 53% of U.S. adults disapproving of him, and the economy continues to be a weakness for Biden. Just 38% approve of his economic leadership as the country faces stubbornly high inflation and Republicans try to make household finances the axis of the upcoming vote.

Still, the poll suggests Biden and his fellow Democrats are gaining momentum right as generating voter enthusiasm and turnout takes precedence.

Average gas prices have tumbled 26% since June to $3.71 a gallon, reducing the pressure somewhat on family budgets even if inflation remains high. Congress also passed a pair of landmark bills in the past month that could reshape the economy and reduce carbon emissions.

Republicans have also faced resistance since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and its abortion protections. And Biden is openly casting former President Donald Trump as a fundamental threat to democracy, a charge that took on resonance after an FBI search of Trump’s Florida home found classified documents that belong to the U.S. government.

This combination of factors has won Biden some plaudits among the Democratic faithful, even if Americans still feel lukewarm about his leadership.

“I’m not under any belief that he’s the best person for the job — he’s the best from the people we had to choose from,” said Betty Bogacz, 74, a retiree from Portland, Oregon. “He represented stability, which I feel President Trump did not represent at all.”

Biden’s approval rating didn’t exceed 40% in May, June or July as inflation surged in the aftermath of Russia invading Ukraine.

The president’s rating now is similar to what it was throughout the first quarter of the year, but he continues to fall short of early highs. His average approval rating in AP-NORC polling through the first six months of his term was 60%.

Driving the recent increase in Biden’s popularity is renewed support among Democrats, who had shown signs of dejection in the early summer. Now, 78% of Democrats approve of Biden’s job performance, up from 65% in July. Sixty-six percent of Democrats approve of Biden on the economy, up from 54% in June.

Interviews suggest a big reason for Biden’s rebound is the reemergence of Trump on the national stage, causing voters such as Stephen Jablonsky, who labeled Biden as “OK,” to say voting Democratic is a must for the nation’s survival.

“The country has a political virus by the name of Donald Trump,” said Jablonsky, a retired music professor from Stamford, Connecticut. “We have a man who is psychotic and seems to have no concern for law and order and democracy. The Republican Party has gone to a place that is so unattractive and so dangerous, this coming election in November could be the last election we ever have.”

Republicans feel just as negative about Biden as they did before. Only about 1 in 10 Republicans approve of the president overall or on the economy, similar to ratings earlier this summer.

Christine Yannuzzi, 50, doubts that 79-year-old Biden has the capacity to lead.

“I don’t think he’s mentally, completely aware of everything that’s happening all the time,” said Yannuzzi, who lives in Binghamton, New York. “The economy’s doing super poorly and I have a hard time believing that the joblessness rate is as low as they say it is.”

“I think the middle class is being really phased out and families are working two and three jobs a person to make it,” the Republican added.

Twenty-nine percent of U.S. adults say the economy is in good shape, while 71% say it’s doing poorly. In June, 20% said conditions were good and 79% said they were bad.

Democrats are more positive now than they were in June, 46% vs. 31%. Republicans remain largely negative, with only 10% saying conditions are good and 90% saying they’re bad.

About a quarter of Americans now say things in the country are headed in the right direction, 27%, up from 17% in July. Seventy-two percent say things are going in the wrong direction.

Close to half of Democrats — 44% — have an optimistic outlook, up from 27% in July. Just 9% of Republicans are optimistic about the nation’s direction.

Akila Atkins, a 27-year-old stay-at-home mom of two, thinks Biden is “OK” and doesn’t have much confidence that his solutions will curb rising prices.

Atkins says it’s gotten a little harder in the last year to manage her family’s expenses, and she’s frustrated that she can no longer rely on the expanded child tax credit. The tax credit paid out monthly was part of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package and has since lapsed.

The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that the expanded tax credit nearly halved the child poverty rate last year to 5.2%. Atkins said it helped them “stay afloat with bills, the kids’ clothing, shoes, school supplies, everything.”

Whatever misgivings the Democrat in Grand Forks, North Dakota, has about Biden, she believes he is preferable to Trump.

“I always feel like he could be better, but then again, he’s better than our last president,” she said.

Anybody is better than Trump!

Tony

___

The poll of 1,054 adults was conducted Sep. 9-12 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

Yvon Chouinard

Dear Commons Community,

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard has given away his $3 billion business, redirecting its profits toward the fight against climate change.

The news caps a fitting end to the trail-blazing rock climber’s unconventional business career. As one of the best-known outdoor clothing and gear brands, Patagonia could easily go public. Chouinard could also find a willing buyer. Or, he could simply retire, retain his ownership and keep the business in the family.

Instead, Chouinard, 83, and his family are shifting their stake in the company to Patagonia Purpose Trust and a nonprofit called Holdfast Collective, which will redirect the company’s annual profits toward environmental causes.  As reported by various news media.

“Earth is now our only shareholder,” Chouinard wrote in an open letter published yesterday. “Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth for investors, we’ll use the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source of all wealth.”

Holdfast Collective is organized as a 501(c)4 corporation, according to The New York Times, which first reported the news. That structure has attracted wide criticism in recent years because it allows nonprofits to spend untaxed donations to influence politics while concealing donors’ names.

But the decision also reflects Chouinard’s open disdain for politicians he dismisses as “climate deniers.” During the 2020 election, Patagonia sold clothes with tags reading “vote the assholes out,” referring to politicians who downplay the threat of climate change.

“You’ve got the Koch family and the fossil-fuel companies: They’re going to be influencing the elections,” Chouinard told Fast Company in a 2019 interview. “We’ve got to do the same thing.”

Born to a French-Canadian family in Maine, Chouinard grew up aspiring to become a fur trapper. He learned to navigate the mountains while hunting coots and rabbits with falcons. As a young man, he joined a trail-blazing group of big wall rock climbers in Yosemite National Park, gaining notoriety for a nine-day first ascent of El Capitán’s North American Wall.

He entered the world of business as a self-taught blacksmith making hand-forged pitons – the spikes that climbers at the time used to support themselves while climbing up vertical walls.

Despite a self-proclaimed anti-capitalist streak, Patagonia – his second major company – catapulted Chouinard into the billionaire class.

In recent years, however, he has increasingly sought ways to use the company and its profits to champion his lifelong love of the outdoors. Patagonia has bankrolled documentaries and books extolling the virtues of wild fish and casting an unflattering spotlight on the hatcheries that dilute their genetics.

Arguing that organic doesn’t do enough to offset the extractive damage of industrial farming, Patagonia has embraced regenerative agriculture for both fiber and food products. The company set an aggressive goal to become carbon neutral by 2025.

Chouinard’s political bent often impacts the company in ways that extend beyond environmental causes. After the Supreme Court rescinded the federal right to abortion this summer, Patagonia trumpeted its policy of bailing out workers who get arrested at protests.

What an example he sets for other billionaires!

Tony

Monica Lewinsky and Ken Starr

Dear Commons Community,

Ken Starr, the lawyer who led the high-profile investigation that resulted in President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment for perjury, died yesterday.  On hearing of his passing,  Monica Lewinsky made a graceful post on Twitter about Starr, who had exposed her affair with Clinton.

Considering that Starr’s investigation helped turned Lewinsky into a target for public shaming and that her encounters with him were “avuncular and creepy,” it would be understandable if she wanted to get a few things off her chest for closure’s sake.

However, she didn’t do that. But what she did do was a master class in how to be graceful in a challenging situation.

Many were impressed by her comments and said that they wished they could be as classy under similar circumstances.

Well-done, Ms. Lewinsky!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Seattle Education Association voted Tuesday afternoon to suspend its strike and return to classrooms starting today.

The vote came after Seattle Public Schools earlier announced a tentative, three-year contract agreement with the educators’ union amid a strike that delayed the start of the school year by five days as they negotiated over improvements to classroom sizes, pay and health services.

“Our strike shows the power that educators and community have when we unite and call for what our students need,” said SEA president Jennifer Matter. “We should all be proud of what we’ve accomplished here for our students and our schools.”

The five days students missed will need to be made up during the school year, the district said in a statement.  As reported by CNN.

“We are thrilled to welcome students and educators back into our classrooms to start this new school year. We are excited to engage fully in our mission — our moral imperative — of high-quality teaching and learning,” said Superintendent Brent Jones.

The strike began last Wednesday, which was scheduled as the first day of school for about 50,000 students in the Seattle school district.

The action came as schools around the country face shortages of teachers, who are increasingly voicing frustration at being underpaid and underappreciated, teaching in crowded classrooms and in challenging conditions made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In Seattle, educators went on strike to demand more support for students, including interpretation and translation services for those receiving multilingual education, and improved special education staffing ratios, according to the Seattle Education Association, which represents about 6,000 employees.

“We’re educators. We don’t have lots of experience with striking. It’s not what we want to be doing. We want to be in our schools with our students,” teacher Ellen Santarelli said in a Facebook video. “However, to get what our students need … we are willing to go outside of our comfort zones — thousands of steps outside of our comfort zones.”

The union also advocated for higher wages and more support and controls to prevent educator burnout, including capping some class sizes.

Good to see that an agreement was reached!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, the counter on Tony’s Thoughts reached nine million visitors.  Since starting this blog in 2009, I have made more than 7,200 posts on topics related to education, technology and current events.  

I thank all of you who have read my posts and have offered suggestions for topics and issues.  I especially thank Matt Gold, Scott Voth, Marilyn Weber and the staff at the CUNY Commons who have provided this superb resource for all of us to share thoughts and interests with one another.

Again my sincerest appreciation for your visits and support for my efforts.

Tony

NOTE:  The count of 9 million visitors excludes spiders or web-crawlers that would have added another 5  million to the count.

Dear Colleagues,

Earlier this year, I published a memoir entitled, The Computer Wasn’t in the Basement Anymore: My Fifty+ Years in Education Technology (1970-2021), and edited by Elaine Bowden.  Below is a review by Foluso Falaye courtesy of Readers’ Favorite. In this book, in addition to the work, scholarship, and teaching I have done, I  mentioned many of the people (mentors, administrators, colleagues, and especially students) who were important to me during my journey. The Computer Wasn’t in the Basement Anymore is available at Amazon.com in both print and e-book editions.

Thank you, Mr. Falaye!

Tony

———————————————————————————-

Book Review

Reviewed by Foluso Falaye for Readers’ Favorite

“The Computer Wasn’t in the Basement Anymore: My Fifty + Years in Education Technology (1970-2021)” contains insights from Anthony G. Picciano’s journey of more than 50 years in the field of education technology and his activities in six public colleges in New York. Some of his numerous undertakings include working with colleagues to determine how to better prepare K-12 teachers for what would be referred to today as STEM ​subjects, becoming a member of an IBM Business Alliance Program that helped deliver economic assistance to less affluent areas in New York City, and contributing to South Africa’s initiative to provide new segments of its population with higher education. Over the years, Anthony’s career exploits ranged from instructing and teaching to conducting research and engaging in administrative duties in different learning institutions.

Anthony G. Picciano has lived such a meaningful life! I was seriously inspired by how he worked with computers to make learning easier and more accessible for students and helped students and youths achieve their educational and life goals. The Computer Wasn’t in the Basement Anymore is undeniably thorough and expertly written as it is brimming with intricate details, vivid descriptions, and helpful references for research purposes. It was quite interesting to experience some parts of history through the author’s honest, perceptive comments about various historical developments, including BLM, 9/11, and Covid-19. This fascinating historical memoir will inspire you to do your best at whatever career you find yourself in for the good of humankind. What a privilege to see the evolution of computers and technology through the exploits of an exemplary character, whose career and life positively impacted many and played an important role in the history of education technology.

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading James Michener’s The Bridge at Andau which chronicles the five days of the Hungarian revolution in 1956. While familiar with his award-winning fiction such as Hawaii and Chesapeake, I was not aware of his non-fiction reporting during this era.  It originally was published in 1957 and republished in 2015.  There is an excellent introduction in the new edition by the writer Steve Berry.

The title refers to a small footbridge at Andau, Austria, that Hungarians used to escape the oppressive regime of the Communists in the 1950s.  Michener was a reporter on the Austrian side of the bridge who ended up assisting escapees and who also took notes on their stories.  This book is historical fiction mainly because while the stories told are basically true, the names of individuals were changed to protect families and friends still in Hungary.  Each chapter relates a story of one or more of the escapees during the revolution.

I found the book intriguing mainly because I was not aware of the details of what took place in Budapest.

I found it a good read!

Below is a so-so review that appeared in Commentary in 1957.

Tony

———————————————————

Commentary

The Bridge at Andau, by James Michener

by Paul Kecskemeti

The Bridge at Andau is an account of the Hungarian revolution based entirely on talks the author had with Hungarian refugees whom he met last November as they were crossing the Austrian border. Mr. Michener devotes most of the book to descriptions of some outstanding episodes of the Budapest uprising, but he also provides flashbacks showing what life was like in Hungary before the revolution. The details of these flashbacks, taken in isolation, seem plausible enough, but their cumulative effect is misleading. One would not know from these stories, for example, that the “thaw” in Soviet policy after Stalin’s death extended to Hungary too, nor do we learn anything about the coalition regime—composed of small landholders, Socialists, and Communists—which preceded the Communist one-party dictatorship.

It is impossible to achieve complete accuracy in reconstructing the events of the actual uprising, since eyewitness accounts of large-scale incidents (such as the siege of the radio station during the night of October 23-24 or the massacre in Parliament Square on October 25) diverge considerably. The main outlines, however, are drawn on Mr. Michener’s pages, and some aspects of the revolution are brought out clearly: the unbelievable courage with which children and adolescents defied death time and again until many were slain; the despair which drove a people to choose death and destruction rather than continue with a life under Communism.

But there are fatal limitations in Mr. Michener’s approach. To begin with, a revolution cannot be portrayed from eyewitness accounts alone, no matter how thoroughly these are checked by “highly trained research experts.” Many crucial political facts must be established from other sources. Whenever Mr. Michener tries to fill the political background in, he relies on fantasy and speculation, often giving the impression of writing about a political never-never land. A glaring example of this is his description of the very first act of the revolution, the presentation of the students’ demands at the radio station:

At nine o’clock that night, while the crowd still hovered near the station a group of university students arrived at the great wooden doors and demanded the right to broadcast to the people of Hungary their demand for certain changes in government policy. These young men sought a more liberal pattern of life. The AVO men laughed at them, then condescendingly proposed, ‘We can’t let you broadcast, but we’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll let you put your complaints on tape, and maybe later on we’ll run the tapes over the air.’ The students refused to fall for this trick and tried to force their way into the building, but the AVO men swung the big doors shut.

This is a purely imaginary scene. The young men were not merely seeking “a more liberal pattern of life”; the text they wanted to broadcast included such points as the formation of a new government under the premiership of Imre Nagy, the withdrawal of Russian troops, the revision of trade treaties with the Soviet Union. The conversation with the laughing policemen at the door of the building never took place. The AVO men guarding the radio station did not negotiate with the students, and there was no offer such as Mr. Michener describes. Actually, the students’ delegation was admitted to the building and there followed a long and fruitless negotiation with the radio authorities as to what could and could not be broadcast.

Mr. Michener has his own notion of what the revolution meant politically:

. . . in Budapest the Soviets perpetrated their horrors upon a people who had originally been their peaceful associates, who had been good communists, and who had co-operated to the point of sacrificing their own national interests. In Budapest, the Russians destroyed with cold fury the very people who had in many ways been their best friends in Eastern Europe. They were not fighting reactionaries. They were not fighting antique elements trying to turn back the clock of history. They were annihilating fellow communists.

Mr. Michener must have heard from many refugees that the workers of Csepel, the miners of Pecs, the students of Budapest were not fighting to restore capitalism, and this apparently could mean only one thing to him: the Hungarians were Communists, willing to sacrifice their own national interests to further the Soviet cause. One is either a reactionary capitalist bent on turning back the clock of history, or a devoted follower of the Soviet Union. Since the Hungarians were not the former, they must have been the latter.

The fallacy involved in such reasoning is obvious. What the Hungarian uprising shows is that the Hungarians could, and did, loathe both the Soviet Union and their own Communist regime, without desiring to return confiscated industrial and landed property to its former owners. But the fact that restoration of capitalism and landlordism was generally rejected by the revolutionaries does not justify the conclusion that at some earlier time the Hungarians as a nation had turned Communist or become the “best friends” the Soviet Union had in Eastern Europe. As long as they could express themselves freely, the Hungarian people voted overwhemingly against the Communist party, in spite of intense pressures and blandishments. One can blame the Russians for many things, but not for annihilating “friends” and “fellow Communists.”

Dear Commons Community,

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said on Friday that Yeshiva University in Manhattan can for now disregard a state court ruling that ordered it to recognize an L.G.B.T.Q. student club — a case she said could be considered by the full Supreme Court.

The ruling in State Supreme Court in Manhattan in June was celebrated by gay students and their supporters but was condemned by administrators at Yeshiva. They derided it as an attack on religious freedom and vowed to appeal; the university applied for an emergency stay late last month.

On Friday evening, Justice Sotomayor granted it. The justice, who has jurisdiction over the lower court, wrote that the state decision was “hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the court.”  As reported by The New York Times.

The ruling suggests that the Supreme Court, which has taken an increasingly broad view of religious freedom in recent years, may take up the university’s case. Since Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court in 2020, petitioners in religious freedom cases have almost always prevailed there.

Yeshiva’s case is the latest skirmish in a heated and yearslong national battle over religious freedom, and whether institutions or even devout individuals can be compelled to provide public accommodation or services to people with differing views.

The university’s appeal has been closely watched by other religious organizations. A broad range of groups told the court this month that they intended to file briefs in support of Yeshiva, including the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

In court documents, Jonathan Berry, a lawyer for that coalition, wrote that the Yeshiva case concerned whether religious educational institutions would be able “to live out their faiths and missions free from state interference.”

Without that protection, he wrote, “religious institutions may soon be forced to face the same impossible choice as Yeshiva University: abandon your faith or risk contempt or other legal penalties.”

The lower court in June had found that Yeshiva was not incorporated as a religious institution but as an educational one, and so must abide by New York City’s human rights law, which bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The university called the decision “obviously wrong” in June, and in its appeal it said it was nonsensical to view as secular an institution that is named after a type of traditional Jewish religious school and that emphasizes religion in its curriculum.

On Friday, its president, Rabbi Ari Berman, said the school wanted students of all sexual orientations and gender identities to feel comfortable on its campus, but it also wanted its identity as an institution grounded in Modern Orthodox Judaism to be taken seriously.

Many non-Orthodox Jewish congregations support L.G.B.T.Q. rights, with some performing same-sex marriages and choosing openly gay or transgender rabbis to tend to the spiritual life of their synagogues. Orthodox leaders, however, tend to interpret the Torah as calling for more traditional ideas of gender and sexuality.

“We are pleased with Justice Sotomayor’s ruling which protects our religious liberty and identity as a leading faith-based academic institution,” Rabbi Berman said in a statement. “But make no mistake, we will continue to strive to create an environment that welcomes all students, including those of our L.G.B.T.Q. community.”

Katie Rosenfeld, a lawyer for the Y.U. Pride Alliance, which has sought official recognition for several years, said the club would await the court’s final order.

“It remains committed to creating a safe space for L.G.B.T.Q. students on Y.U.’s campus to build community and support one another without being discriminated against,” she said.

This case will be watched closely should the US Supreme Court take it up.

Tony