Don’t mess with… Whatever the fuck this guy’s name is. Is he even a guy? The beauty of online courses is that the York University student complaining about having “to meet [just once, I presume] in person with a group of classmates [some of whom may be women] for a mandatory assignment” could be a woman, a child…

Let’s say he’s a guy. His thing is, he didn’t sign up for an online course in order to rub up against the Whores of Babylon.

The professor and his department – sociology – rejected the student’s request outright, correctly noting that bigotry against women is a no-no at a public and secular university like York. Remember the humongous dust-up last month after efforts to allow gender apartheid at British universities? Same deal.

J. Paul Grayson, the heroic professor at the center of this mess (higher-ups at York told him and the department that they had to give in to the student’s demand), makes the same point they made in England:

“You have to nip this in the bud, because what you’re dealing with here is a basic hornet’s nest,” Dr. Grayson said in an interview. “What if … I said, well, my religion really frowns upon my interacting with blacks?”

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The irony of this latest effort to make universities bow to fanatics is that the student, told that his request was rejected, immediately caved. Although he had initially insisted that – as Grayson paraphrased him – “due to my firm religious beliefs … it will not be possible for me to meet in public with a group of women” – he now said

he would “respect the final decision” to deny the request, was pleased with the way it had been handled, and has since met with his learning group.

Of course, the higher-ups at York are still on their high horses, insisting that the university’s all set up to respect people who refuse to interact in the physical world with women.

And the sociologists at York who stood their ground are, I certainly hope, laughing in their faces.

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UD thanks Ian.

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Update: UD‘s pleased to say that it gets better:

In an October 18 email, the Dean specifically told Mr. Grayson that if he was worried about the “course experience of our female students” he would make sure they “are not made aware of the accommodation.”

What they don’t know won’t hurt ’em, dude. Just shut up!

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And just so we’re clear: Events like these help us understand and know how to respond to the idiocy of statements like this one from Katha Pollitt:

[R]eligion is what people make of it.

Grayson, just to be absolutely sure, consulted orthodox Jewish and Muslim religious leaders on this, and both expressed astonishment that anyone would conclude that these religions call for no appearance in the public realm for men if there are any women also in that realm.

Religion, Katha, is not what people make of it. Religion is many things, but not all things. (“What is disturbing is an apparent increasing tendency to view each claim for accommodation as legitimate and worthy of support. Indeed, the notion that not all claims should be accepted would come as a shock to the morally relativistic fingernail biters that roam the hallways in some academic buildings.”) A university dean, gripped by litigation fears when he reads the word religion in an email from a student, may believe that the mere invocation of the word religion constitutes religion; Pollitt may believe that if I happen to “make of” religion the removal of infants’ sexual organs this constitutes religion. The rest of us must follow Grayson’s lead.