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Wednesday, July 14, 2004
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ONE MORE UPDATE
Readers may recall Christina Axson-Flynn (UD, 5/8/04), the University of Utah drama student whose lawsuit against the university for having "forced her out of the [drama] department for refusing to recite lines that contained the F-word or took the Lord's name in vain" or in any other way offended her was dismissed by a U.S. District judge in 2001. Axson-Flynn kept on suing, however, and in a settlement today the university "agreed to allow students to withdraw from certain academic activities because of their religious beliefs." To get a sense of what it's done to itself, the University of Utah might want to take a look at contemporary French secondary and higher education. Demands - mainly from fundamentalist Muslim women students or their parents - that they be allowed to opt out of a whole array of courses and activities that offend them have created havoc in the school system. In America, we hear mainly about the veil controversy in French schools, but underlying that controversy is the larger one having to do with whether certain students should be allowed to forego any meaningful membership in an academic community. |