Equal rights or separate but equal?

[Dinner]

Here is a case which I thought could spark some interesting conversation (hopefully civil). Harvard University has recently started a new policy of restricting access to university athletic facilities to just women during certain hours of the day. This is in response to several complaints from Muslim students who claim their religion and culture prevent them from working out if members of the opposite sex are also allowed to use the facilities while they are there. No similar arrangement has been made for male students or for other religious groups.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23470304/

Reportedly this new policy is extremely unpopular on campus with some saying it is both unAmerican and an illegal form of segregation. These people are demanding that all students be granted equal access to university athletic facilities. Is this a case of equal rights vs separate but equal or are people making a mountain out of a mole hill?

[David Floyd]

I think it's bull****. It denies students - the vast majority of students - equal access during certain times, access that they are paying for (paying quite a bit for, I'd say).

Imagine if another university decided to have times for whites only. It's the same thing. There is nothing preventing Muslim women from working out, other than their religion, which is emphatically THEIR'S, and not the university's or anyone else's.

[Riesstiu IV]

What an awful policy. Harvard and When in Rome do as the mother f*cking Romans. Muslims immigrants who come to the US should realize most Americans don't give two sh*ts about their barbaric customs back at home.

They should either own up to the fact they have to live with other people who are not Muslim or go back.

Ironic how, in the pursuit of the ultimate enlightenment and tolerance, ivory tower college liberals gladly institute and defend ass-backwards medieval practices which crassly conflict with everything they believe in.

Let's not forget what happened when lawrence summers, president of harvard suggested that women might have different innate abilities and preferences in education and was fired about a year and a half later in the ensuing ****storm.

[Jon Miller]

They should have women's only rooms like many major gyms. To be honest, a lot of women don't like to be gawked at while working out.

JM
(to be honest, I sometimes do a bit of gawking )

[Riesstiu IV]

Apparently barring women from a gym at certain hours is okay but god forbid you offend muslims. Here's an article about a Pace student who got in trouble for rightfully putting the Koran in a toilet and taking a dump on it.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008...ped_quran.html

A former Pace University student who twice threw copies of the Quran into a toilet at the school after disputes with Muslims pleaded guilty Monday to disorderly conduct in connection with the incidents.

Stanislav Shmulevich, 24, pleaded guilty as part of a deal in which he must do 300 hours of community service. He has completed about 80 hours of the service at a hospital, his lawyer said.

Shmulevich, of Brooklyn, admitted he tossed the Muslim holy books into toilets at Pace on Oct. 13, 2006, and Nov. 21, 2006. A criminal complaint says the Quran that was recovered in the October incident "was covered in feces."

In both cases, a teacher found the books in a men's room on the second floor of the school's main building in lower Manhattan.

Muslims consider the Quran a sacred writing that contains the direct word of God, and desecrating it is seen as an offense against God.

Detective Faisal Khan, who prepared the complaint, said Shmulevich told him "he committed the acts out of anger toward a group of Muslim students with whom he had a recent disagreement."

Shmulevich, a business major and immigrant from the former Soviet Union, initially was charged with two counts of criminal mischief as a hate crime. The charge is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison.

His lawyer, Glenn Morak, said he believed the disorderly conduct plea was an appropriate disposition.

"There was no hate crime here," Morak said. "He accepts responsibility, and he is repentant."

Shmulevich, the lawyer said, is no longer at Pace, which has about 14,000 students on its campuses in New York City and Westchester County.

[Wiglaf]

Apparently barring women from a gym at certain hours is okay but god forbid you offend muslims. Here's an article about a Pace student who got in trouble for rightfully putting the Koran in a toilet and taking a dump on it.

[snoopy369]

When debating abridging the rights of one group to provide for the rights of another, you need to weigh the harm done in each option, whether there are other possibilities to solving the conflict, and ultimately choose the solution that does the least harm.

In this case, assuming all other facts are irrelevant (unbiased news sources, yeah, right, but it has to be assumed to have the discussion), it certainly sounds like the harm done by refusing admission to half the student body is far greater than the harm done to the muslim students, whose sensibilities are offended.

I think the solution might be rather simpler - encourage the muslim students to start a workout class where they might work out with others of similar opinions in a room in the gym (presumably this is a large enough gym to have rooms for workout classes). It is a fairly simple solution that gives both groups what they want mostly, while not seriously harming anyone's rights...

[David Floyd]

Let's show solidarity - find the nearest Half-Price Book Store (because why pay full price for it?), buy a copy for yourself, and take a dump on it

[David Floyd]

I think that's probably the best solution, snoopy.

[DinoDoc]

Is it really that hard to just expel students that make stupid demands?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by snoopy369
When debating abridging the rights of one group to provide for the rights of another, you need to weigh the harm done in each option, whether there are other possibilities to solving the conflict, and ultimately choose the solution that does the least harm.

In this case, assuming all other facts are irrelevant (unbiased news sources, yeah, right, but it has to be assumed to have the discussion), it certainly sounds like the harm done by refusing admission to half the student body is far greater than the harm done to the muslim students, whose sensibilities are offended.

I think the solution might be rather simpler - encourage the muslim students to start a workout class where they might work out with others of similar opinions in a room in the gym (presumably this is a large enough gym to have rooms for workout classes). It is a fairly simple solution that gives both groups what they want mostly, while not seriously harming anyone's rights...

While your solution is fine, your reasoning is nonsense. There are no rights at issue here. Nobody has a right to go to Harvard. Going to Harvard is a privilege, and as such appeals to "rights" are irrelevent.

Moreover, Harvard is Harvard because it is an American institution. Enlightened liberal secularism is what makes Harvard Harvard, and what makes Harvard great. Going to Harvard and asking for policies that don't reflect its liberal securlarism is like getting all pissy about not being able to get a kosher meal at McDonald's. Must eat kosher? Skip Mickey D's. Must work out in a penis-free atmosphere? Go to an all-female health club, or a health club with women-only hours (I guarantee you can find both in Boston). But asking for a policy change is ridiculous -- albeit, nowhere near as ridiculous a the school giving in to the demand.

[snoopy369]

It was put forth as an issue of civil rights, so I treated it as such. Harvard does have an obligation, as a public institution (even if not one funded by public moneys) to treat people equally and such (ie, they can't just accept white kids). Certainly this is not a situation that could end up in court without being thrown out forthwith, given the relatively insignificant relevance of this particular issue; but that does not mean Harvard can't choose to treat it as an issue of conflicting rights - or conflicting opinions/desires. You can view any governmental (even 'governments' like Harvard's board) intervention as resolving a conflict of rights (or interests or desires, whatever word you prefer); any governmental action that cannot be viewed as such is an unnecessary one.

The argument that "Harvard is an american institution" is pure hogwash. America is a land of multiculturalism where no one culture is assumed superior, or at least is supposed to be; and when possible we make allowances for cultures very different from our own. The argument against this is that it is too significant a harm to justify the benefit, not that it's unreasonable to try and accept others' beliefs.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by snoopy369
The argument against this is that it is too significant a harm to justify the benefit, not that it's unreasonable to try and accept others' beliefs.

No similar arrangement has been made for male students or for other religious groups.

[snoopy369]

That's irrelevant to the quoted statement, which clearly states that in this case it's inappropriate.

[Dinner]

I personally agree that every student should have equal access to university public facilities and it is up to individual students to decide if they wish to make use of those facilities or not. If people believe it violates their personal standards of moral conduct then they should not use the facilities just like I wouldn't expect a person who keeps Kosher to eat at a nonKosher restaurant.

To play devil's advocate though... The university is a private university so it can what ever rules it wants provided those rules don't break Federal or state laws, right? Does the women's only hours violate any of those laws?

Side questions to spur debate: What role does government financing of educational institutions, awarding of government research grants, or even government student aid possibly play in this argument? Can the government tie awards of such moneys to universities following government guidelines? Is that even desirable in this case?

Next question, if men only hours were also set up would that solve the equal access issue or would that simply create a situation of separate but equal which the Supreme Court has declared to be unequal?