A student taking an online course is seeking to be excused from group work because his religious beliefs forbid him from meeting with female classmates.
His professor at the Toronto university, Paul Grayson, rejected his request, which ignited a controversy at the university about human rights.
“I was quite shocked,” Grayson told CBC-Radio’s Ontario Today. He said he did not know the religion of the student, but fundamentally did not agree with accommodating him.
The sociology professor got in touch with the Centre for Human Rights and the dean’s office at York. Both replied that he had to comply with the student’s request, with the dean issuing three separate orders to comply.
“I basically refused,” said Grayson. “My main concern was that for religious beliefs, we also can justify not interacting with Jews, blacks, gays, you name it. And if this were allowed to go through, then all these other absurd demands could be made.”
Grayson said accommodating the student would be against everything he stands for.
“Women for 50 years have been making gains in universities,” said the professor. “This takes us back to the dark ages as far as I’m concerned. It’s completely unacceptable.”
The communication between Grayson and the university took about three months. In that time, Grayson had a conversation with the student directly about his request.
“Very early in the game, I got in touch with the student and said, look, I’m sorry, I simply cannot accommodate you. And his reaction basically was, oh, OK. And he was OK with it. The student is not the problem.”
The student participated in the group project, ultimately. But Grayson said the university ordered him to make it clear to the student that he did not have to meet with female classmates.
The university issued a statement saying it is committed to respecting religious beliefs, but said the case was “complicated by the fact that it was an online course where alternative arrangements were put in place to accommodate students who were unavailable to attend classes on campus.”
A handful of federal politicians say they agree with the professor and that the school went too far in siding with the student.
Justice Minister Peter MacKay said that having men and women attend school together was precisely what Canada fought to accomplish when it sent soldiers to Afghanistan.
Liberal MP Judy Sgro, who represents the riding of York West in which the university is located, said the professor made the right decision. Conservative MP Mark Adler, who represents the adjacent riding of York Centre, says there is no place in Canadian society for sexism.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said universities should not be accommodating such a demand.
Source: CBC News, January 9
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Questions:
Is it not surprising that the university is taking such a strong position in this apparently straightforward case? After all, this is very different from the Quebec debate, which revolves around conspicuous religious symbols worn by civil servants in the province, a much more common phenomenon than a male student who refuses to share a class project with a female student for religious reasons.
The student dos not identify himself as a Muslim. Surely this is a highly unusual position for a student of any religion to take.
Did the university oppose Professor Paul Grayson for that very reason? Since the student’s position is so absurd, they might as well take the high ground of respecting religious freedom. Does that make sense?
It is possible that the student might also be an orthodox Jew who in following the impulses of self-segregation (as opposed to Jewish law and custom) thinks he may be doing the “right thing.” More troubling is the lack of creating a shared set of cultural values - something that public institutions like universities and the CBC are supposed to do. Adam Gopnik’s latest article in the New Yorker on the Roma in France is instructive about the limits of cultural tolerance. That so-called “tolerance” disguised under the cloak of multiculturalism, simply allows for a perpetuation of the old order and class dominance. Prof. Grayson was right in his demands. But the university was also right in stating that the professor was wrong to change the classroom arrangements without giving notice to the students when the class began. So do we as a culture have any shared values? Or is it chacun à son hijab/kippa/kirpan?
Does religious freedom trump gender equality? Society stumbles along trying to reach consensus. We engage in constant dialectical discussion where the outcome is never certain. In a unitary religious dictatorship, there’s only one right answer; there’s no dialogue and people who dissent are punished. In our messy democracy, it’s a constant contest. The zeitgeist at the moment (thank goodness) seems to be tilted towards gender equality, which makes it difficult for the minority who favour absolute religious freedom to feel included or respected. If there were a God, s/he’d probably be happy, but not with York’s decision, which is antithetical to the current trend.
Wouldn’t we be better off if religious beliefs were private matters (and no one else’s business) to be honoured and practiced at home, church, mosque or synagogue, and in one’s own religious community, but with no expectation that the larger society (or organizations such as universities) would cater (as at a buffet) to every individual’s unique preferences?
I think today’s Globe and Mail editorial got it about right.
Taking a different tack, one commentator wonders, ‘Maybe I’m much too cynical, but I honestly can’t help wondering if Mr. X, a student enrolled in a sociology course at a secular university, decided to organize his own sociological experiment — both to see how far he could push student accommodations made for religious reasons, and to stir up the media. It’s pretty easy to put the feminist blogosphere into a frenzy (and this is said by someone who participates heavily in the feminist blogosphere), and I could definitely see someone getting their kicks that way. If that’s the case, then Mr. X has wasted York University’s time and money, as well as putting a professor’s career in jeopardy’.
Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that?!
There was a man at the CBC who wouldn’t shake hands with women on some principle or other. It was tolerated. What do you think of that CBC lovers?
Did the university side with the student because he pays them? They need to keep their clients happy, and more importantly the parents so that they won’t take their business somewhere else. The teacher, on the other hand, is considered a pain in the ass by the Administration of any school. For one thing, they have to pay him, which they resent; and so he better at least stay in line, and not get caught up with “moral” issues…
Why is our society so alive to race and gender issues without seeing their connections to class?
There are a couple of levels of discourse here. One is ‘reasonable accommodation’ to special needs/wishes/states. Not all accommodation is reasonable, and the prof could reasonably take the position he did.
The other is what the Ontario Human Rights Code requires, which is that the institution subject to it (York, not the professor) MUST accommodate the demand to the point of ‘undue hardship’. In this case, the prof already excused students from in-person group work if they were too far away (the course being advertised as and largely given as an online course). So how was the institution put to any hardship to accommodate this student?
It is far from clear that the Code makes any allowance for hardship, especially psychological hardship, to anyone else. The leading case is Simpson’s (the department store that many readers will be old enough to remember) v O’Malley. Ms O’Malley converted to Seven Day Adventism then declined to work Saturdays, as she had done previously. The court (right to the top, as I recall - the SCC) said that Simpson’s had to accommodate her, i.e. not make her work on Saturdays, whatever that did to the schedules of other workers who might have liked Saturdays off but who did not have a religious reason for it.
So I can understand if York’s lawyers are looking at the Code and saying the stupid narrow-minded bigot has to be accommodated. His bigotry and blinkered idea of why his Invisible Friend might have put both men and women on this world hurt mainly himself.
However, the bigot seems to have taken the first view of accommodation.
BTW the Quebec Charter of Values does not speak only of ostentatious symbols. It also has a rule that efforts of accommodation may not diminish equality of the sexes. That’s what s. 28 of the Canadian Charter aimed to do, though I don’t think it has always succeeded (at least in the eyes of some of its advocates.) Maybe the Human Rights Code of Ontario needs such a provision.
I’m thinking that ‘civilized’ nations are governed by the rule of law. And the rule of law should be the same for everyone, everywhere. Over time we’ve learned about discrepancies and tried to correct them. To reduce injustice and inequality. Religion has no such aim, allowing the rules to be interpreted by 1 or a few. In the case of the patriarchal religions this means that women, especially, are subservient. If a religion required child sacrifice on an alter then there would be no discussion here. And, in my view, segregation of sections of society is contrary to the rule of law. The religious student can attend religious schools where all within accept the restrictions. But he/she cannot, legally, demand special segregation in public schools.