Fulbright scholar, poet and literature professor Ladin was put on indefinite leave after announcing her gender transition in 2006, according to anonymous staff members. After months of debate between rabbis, administrators, Ladin and her lawyers, Ladin was cleared to return. According to staff, the decision was to avoid a legal battle.

"I think it's fabulous and wonderful," said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. "I don't know of any other religiously conservative university that employs someone trans."

Rabbi Moshe Tendler, senior dean at the university's rabbinical school, told the New York Post, "He's a person who represents a kind of amorality which runs counter to everything Yeshiva University stands for."

"There's no niche," he added, "where he can hide out as a female without being in massive violation of Torah law, Torah ethics and Torah morality."

Ladin's return is "great news," said former student Sarah Rindner, "and I'm sure the university won't regret it."

"There are transgender people all over the world," added former student Shayndi Raice Sigall, "and this is a wonderful opportunity for the school to show students firsthand how you can respect and learn from someone who might be different from you."

Dr. Jillian T. Weiss, a transgender Yeshiva alumna and law professor, recalls an earlier legal battle involving a lesbian couple that Yeshiva ultimately won, but at a substantial cost. "My guess on the legal fees for Yeshiva is in the $100,000-$250,000 range," Dr. Weiss said. "The case generated lots of press for Yeshiva, but not the good kind."

A lesbian graduate student enrolled at Yeshiva's Albert Einstein College of Medicine requested housing for herself and her partner of five years and was refused because she wasn't legally married. At the time, New York did not recognize same-sex marriages. The student sued under city law and lost in the trial and appeals court before the Supreme Court overturned the earlier rulings and sent the case back to trial court.

"Despite what religious ideologues might say," Weiss said, adding a voice to the suggestion that the school wanted to avoid another legal battle, "sometimes discretion is the better part of valor."

Yeshiva staff members told local TV station CW11 in a recent video report that they were "fully supportive and happy to have a very respected poet and member of their department back." Neither Ladin nor the school has official comment.

More from Dr. Weiss, including the CW11 report, is available at her blog, Transgender Workplace Diversity.