Unrelated, but if I had semikha, I would not join the RCA due to the organizational positions on the following:
1) Their refusal to deal constructively with the agunah issue. Rav Soloveitchik, zt”l, knocked down any possibility of a bet din using kiddushei ta’ut or kiddushei al tenai. Perhaps the issue was personal disagreements with Rav Rackman, zt”l, or Rav Berkovits, zt”l.
2) Their position on conversion. The entire GPS conversion system is a big mistake, and the fact that they routinely exclude converts sitting on a conversion bet din (100% mutar according to Maran haMehaber) are bad policy, and the fact that they rejected the efforts of R’ Marc Angel (a mumche in inyanei giyur, and the RCA’s president in the early 90s) is shameful.
As with conversion, such kashrut policies are intended to centralize and cement power in the hands of a chosen few, rather than allow qualified Orthodox rabbis to act according to their own psakim.
5) Get me’usa: my above mentioned beliefs on the kiddushei al tenai or kiddushei ta’ut do not preclude a legitimate concern that gittin given through protests can very well be considered me’usa. Some say that there is no hashash nowadays for a get me’usa; the burden of proof falls upon them. They engage in public humiliation by holding protests outside the homes of recalcitrant husbands. Rambam, in Hilkhot Gerushin 2:20, says that If it isn’t required according to the halacha that the husband be forced to give a get and beis din made a mistake or it was a beis din of laymen – [Rabbi Tougher’s translation is ” a Jewish court or simple people compel him”] and they forced him until he gave a get – the get is not valid. But since Jews have forced him he should give her a valid get [because he might think it was valid and when he marries another without obtaining a valid get it produces mamzerim]. However if goyim force him not according to halacha it is not a get…. since the law does not require it and the force was from goyim it is not a get.”
Forcing the husband to give a get by unauthorized persons makes it a get me’usa according to my diyuk in the Rambam. Lekhem Mishna explicitly says that if individuals pressure him where he is not required to give a get the get is posul mi d’oraita, same as if a non-Jewish court forced him to give a get. The only reason that we can, on certain occasions force a get is because “it is a mitzvah to listen to the sages.” We therefore assume, Rambam explains, that the husband wants to remain a Jew and that the coercers are masters of Jewish law and are to be obeyed. But if plain people who are not accepted by the husbands as the experts on the Torah that he must obey, the get is invalid, hence my reservations about ORA activism.
6) I believe that the attacks against Yeshivat Maharat are unfounded (See Mishpetei Uziel HM 3:6; Piskei Uziel 43, R’ Daniel Sperber, “On Women in Rabbinic Leadership Positions, etc.)