Well, gosh, can’t have that. Heaven forbid that the innocent young things should have to think about their beliefs long enough to write an entire page about them. Of course, it’s better than having to read and discuss a whole book about Islam, which is clearly an Evil Liberal Plot … because, um … everybody needs to be protected from learning anything about any other religions. Especially at a university; why, there are impressionable 18-year-olds at a university, who need to be shielded from anything that might bruise the delicate blossom of their ignorance!
As it happens, I’m tutoring for a summer program at UNC and working with a group of these incoming freshmen, most of them bright-but-sheltered kids from small towns throughout the state. A few weeks ago, they made the shocking discovery that there were gay people on campus. Pandemonium ensued. (“I hope I don’t get a gay roommate, because I’ll never be able to go to sleep before he does.” “Ew! Why would anybody want to be gay?” etc.) The primary instructor for the class, showing far more restraint than I would have been able to summon, let them talk for a while and gently pointed out that they would have to get along with all sorts of people when school started in the fall, including gay people, Buddhists, and Muslims. At this point, one young man jumped out of his chair and shouted “No, I WON’T!”
Ironically, these are all minority students, and several of them had written papers advocating greater diversity in the university – meaning, I guess, more people exactly like them. As I have learned in my two years of teaching freshman English, the ones who have never been a minority of any sort are worse. How, exactly, does allowing these students to choose not to learn about other perspectives help them?
What really gets to me is the administration’s spinelessness; they are, apparently, afraid of being sued. IANAL, but this sounds like an empty threat; surely, the university has a right to require students to read any book it deems part of their education. Could I have sued my undergraduate college for requiring me to take a course on Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Milton, on the grounds that I found the writings of dead Christian Englishmen offensive? The administrators’ decision to back down opens the door to all sorts of silliness, while I find it hard to believe they would lose in a court of law if they decided to stand firm. They would, however, lose business, and that’s the bottom line.
Well, college is a consumer’s market these days, and I guess the students’ desire to be comfortable trumps their right to be educated. It’s a shame about all those religious minority students, though, who have to adapt to a Christian-dominated and often hostile social environment from day one, while conservative Christian students evidently don’t have to make any concessions at all, even to the extent of learning about other religions. Sigh.
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