Well, even running with the Billy Graham example, I’d have to say I think that’s OK. University students are expected to bring their critical faculties to bear on the material offered to them. The university, in prescribing a text (any text), is not requiring students to agree with what they read, and it positively does not want them to accept it uncritically. Hence even if they prescribed the bible or the Qu’uran with no commentary, or an openly polemical, missionary kind of work by Billy Graham or his Muslim equivalent, I still don’t think this is an establishment of religion unless it is presented in a context in which students are expected to accept it as true, rather than as worthy of critical analysis.
As I said in the other thread, the potential issue is not IMO an establishment problem (constitutionally speaking) but rather a free-exercise problem. The argument goes like this:
“I belong to a fundamentalist religion that rejects the legitimacy of any other religion except my own. Not only do I hold, as a matter of belief, that such other religions are illegitimate, I hold as a matter of belief that they are absolutely antithetical to my religion – evil, in other words, where my religion is good. Therefore, you do not have the right to compel me to study something I think is evil, nor do you have the right to compel me to treat with respect ideas I think are contemptible. When you attempt to compel me to do these things, you violate my right to the free exercise of my religion, because my religion requires that I not study that other religion.”
If you don’t see this point regarding Islam, consider the situation if the religion in question was, say, Satanism. Would forcing every incoming freshman, regardless of belief, to read a respectful book be okay then. And no, I am not comparing Islam to Satanism, but the argument would be the same.
I’m not saying this argument would win out over the counter-argument – that a university has a vested interest in the dissemination of ideas and information, and that if your religion requires you to be insulated from either, then you shouldn’t be at a university – but it is a colorable argument.
Jodi, given your example, should universities be forbidden to require students to study:
-evolution
-geology
-astronomy
-Shakespeare
-medicine?
Creationists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Scientists consider these to be wrong, wrong, wrong, and possibly demonically-influenced.
I believe that a proper government attitude toward religion is to ignore people’s religious preferences when choosing a course of action. Otherwise, a government school can teach almost nothing.
I read a long interview with the author of the book recently, and definitely came away with the impression that he was writing a book about What Muslims Believe. A similar book about the Bible would contain, probably, passages from the story of Creation, some of the stuff about Moses, maybe some of thestuff about Abraham and/or Noah. The bulk of it would be quoted passages, and analysis, from the Gospels. It’d have a bit from Paul’s letters, and it’d finish up with a bit from Revelations.
A book by Biliy Graham wouldn’t be at all the same thing. Even so, it might be good required reading for students at a Parisian university who are grappling with American fundamentalism – it might help them understand what motivates so much of our politics.
Daniel
Then don’t send your kid to college, then. Or send your kid to a school that mirrors your own beliefs. When you go out into the world, you are going to be exposed to things that may bother you. The only way to avoid that is to stay in your cloistered existence.
And I seem to remember that a student is allowed to “opt out” and write a paper saying why he or she didn’t want to or couldn’t participate in the project. The paper would be of similar length to the paper required in the course. Writing “My religion forbids me to read the sacred texts of other religions” (in more detail of course) would be perfectly acceptible, in my eyes.
I think gobear’s post says it best. Comparing this to requiring a book about Christianity is inappropriate because even atheists and other non-Judeo-Christians can probably recite several of the ten commandments. Most people in this country know the very basics about Christian beliefs, and to a lesser extent, Jewish beliefs. A valid comparison would be a book on Judeo-Christian underpinnings of the law to be taught in China, where they are likely not familiar with. (Ignore the 1st amendment not being applicable in China)
I’m shocked, SHOCKED, to hear that Faux News would distort facts!
Perhaps they could model it after the way American history is taught in grades K through 12?
-fh
Sure. While I see that such a course might be open to abuse, I could also see a legitimate use for it.
A university deep in the Bible Belt with a very high percentage of Northern or Western (or foreign) students might use such a course to introduce the students to the “town” and its environs.
Requiring all students, even those who were, themselves, Southern Baptist to take the course would ensure that all the students were “on the same page” and the presence of SB students would guarantee that the mandatory class participation would have some “reality” to it.
I could see a Rust Belt college requiring Catholic studies for the same purpose (although it would have been more relevant 40 years ago than today).
Continuing:
As long as the course is treating the religion as an object of investigation and there is no preaching/witnessing/prosyletizing in the course, I cannot see any legitimate objection to it.
I don’t have any quotes handy right now, but I remember James Madison saying that the first amendment was meant to establish a separation between church and state. Many try to tamper with the meanings of the first amendment in order to prove that putting “under God” on money or in the pledge is not unconstitutional. However, to these people, I say this: what if Satanists gained control of the country and put “under Satan” on everything and constantly ranted about Satan, or something equally vile? I suppose if these people would defend the rights of the government to mention the religion that most repulses them in all of their statements and place it everywhere, I would say that such people really believe what they are saying.
Now then, I firmly believe that the government should carefully avoid religion in its official actions. Period. I would support the schools rights to assign this book if they also assigned books about every other religion practiced in the school. If not, I believe a fine line is being skated.
An interesting (and slightly more reliable) report of the battle is on the Washington Post…
A Timely Subject – and a Sore One: UNC Draws Fire, Lawsuit for Assigning Book on Islam
A good article, presenting both sides. Sounds like Faux News presented pretty much Joe Glover’s (opposing the book) side of it.
I like what Sells himself has to say about the book.
Based on this alone, I’ve added it to my future reading list.
That’s fine, but that’s not what the First Amendment says. The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion, it does not require the avoidance of religion. Your post actually condemns tampering with the meaning of the amendment and then tampers with the language of the amendment.
The course is not the establishment of religion. It’s not a restriction on the free exercise either, though Jodi makes an interesting argument. This course requirement is a broad and neutral requirement that is not targeted towards denying anybody their right to free exercise. That sort of thing is allowable under First Amendment jurisprudence.
When I enrolled at the State University of Iowa in 1946 there was a set of “core courses.” They dealt with the basics of western culture and civilization. Everyone had to take at least two of them and I took one entitled “The Greeks and The Bible.” One of the required books was a somewhat abstracted Old Testament (you can’t cover the Bible in one semester, maybe not even in two, heh, heh) which was used to examine the effects of the Bible on the thought of the west (i.e. Europe from which our own culture was derived), among other things.
I would assume, based on the links and other posts in the thread that the North Carolina course is the same sort of thing.
Okay, I’ll bite- are you suggesting that American History classes in the U.S. are whitewashed, sanitzied pap that merely tells kids how wonderful and perfect America is?
If so, I’d LOVE to know where you grew up. That was NEVER my experience. My grade school and high school history texts were clearly written by people with a left-wing, anti-patriotic agenda.
I have no problem with presenting any nation’s history as it is, warts and all. I have a BIG problem with presenting ONLY the warts. It’s only right that accounts of World War 2 should include accounts of the prison camps where Japanese-Americans were interned, but it’s ABSURD that such accounts should make up more than half of the entire text on World War 2 (as they did in my youngest brother’s 8th grade history book).
In any case, I happen to think there are good, valid reasons for Americans to study Islam. But the purpose of such study in a college setting is to help students UNDERSTAND Islam, not to make them admire it. It seems pretty clear to me that UNC’s administration is trying to create a PR campaign for Moslems. And THAT crosses an important line.
Not to be petty, but… cite, please? If you’re going to make an accusation like that, you should be able to back it up with something.
UNC is an educational institution, and they organize classes and teachers. Many classes assign books, so they have to choose which books to assign at some point. When I was in college, I read books about Utopian societies, other cultures, philosophy, history, and religion, all of which presented their own unique perspectives. I see this as being no different, and I certainly don’t see how assigning a book to be read and discussed in a class could be considered a “PR campaign.”
In fact, this would probably not even be newsworthy were it not for the Christian organization pressing for a lawsuit in the case. Some PR campaign.
And by the way, it “Muslims.”
>> that when he wrote the book several years ago, his goal was to avoid “the whole argument about the violent or nonviolent nature” of Islam.
Yeah, so he took the parts he liked and ignored those that didn’t favor his view. Not very objective. From the same Washington Post article:
At least let’s try to be objective.
Yes, let’s… perhaps you missed the part further on in the same WP article, wherein Sells comments on the passages he omitted and discusses why he did so. He suggests that people like Glover’s reading of them is out of context, and encourages that they be considered in context.
Just as Christians should read the Bible in context, so too should the Qur’an be understood in context… sounds pretty reasonable (and objective) to me.
To put it another way, would you have the same problem with books that only discuss Revelations or Genesis from the Bible, while leaving off the other books?
Here’s my problem with it, and correct me if I’m wrong about this part, but the story I saw said that those who opt out have to write a paper about why they have a religious objection to taking the class, and present it in front of the class.
If someone doesn’t want to take the class, it is none of anybody else’s business why they don’t want to. Why should they have to explain themselves?
I see this little plan as not-so-subtle pressure for students to just fall in, take the class, don’t make waves, or else they’ll be put in the spotlight.
My point is that I am under the impression that the book (which I have not read) is not a balanced view but is a biased view. IF that is so, then I would think a more balanced view would be better study.
Given that today the violent nature of many muslims is quite a common topic, it seems the suras which talk about killing infidels should be the last ones to be left out. They should be the first ones to be studied and the professor can explain all the context he wants. But leaving them out and looking at the rest seems a bit unbalanced.
There is no question that there are serious problems in the world today due to many muslims believing their religion supports violence against infidels. I would think a study of those suras and an explanation of how they should be interpreted would be pretty important.
I don’t know whether or not that summary is accurate, but the students should most definitely be given an alternate assignment. The class, in which one book on a topic of current import is read and discussed, is required for all incoming freshmen. If a student has a religious objection to a particular book, a legitimate argument can be made to allow them not to read it (although I disagree strongly), but that doesn’t mean they should be allowed to waive the course requirement. They need to be given an alternate assignment which at least aims for the same goals as the course itself.
From what I had read previously on this topic, students who wanted not to take the course were to be assigned a one- or two-page paper. A two-page paper? In college? Two-page papers should have been over and done with by one’s sophomore year of high school, IMNSHO.
If you’re enrolled in college, you’re presumably there to be educated and to learn to think critically. It isn’t just advanced vocational training, despite the overwhelming number of people who treat it that way. If you’re going to claim that God doesn’t want you to read and discuss a book – and there is no indication whatsoever that opinions critical of or derisive of the book would be discouraged, and in fact I’d think they’d be welcomed as long as they were well-founded – then you need to be given an assignment of equal difficulty.
I’m also curious as to why astorian would think that the faculty and administration of UNC, whose board of trustees and administration – assuming they mirror that of the population of the U.S. and North Carolina – are probably overwhelmingly Christian, would engage in a “PR campaign for Moslems.” :rolleyes:
You hit the nail on the head. That is exactly what I am suggesting.
I grew up in Houston and went to public schools, and that was my experience.
-fh