Links
Archives
Thursday, January 13, 2005
|
UD SALUTES: The University of Utah
When we last visited Ms. Christina Axson-Flynn (see UD posts dated 5/8/04 and 7/14/04), she had succeeded, through legal settlement, in getting the University of Utah to institute a “religious accommodation policy” in which students would be able to “opt out of coursework if it conflicts with their beliefs,” their “sincerely held core beliefs.” Ms. Flynn sued in the first place, for instance, because, although a drama student at the university, she refused out of religious conviction to utter any lines that contained swear words. But although the university has gone ahead and written something up, the Academic Senate doesn’t like it, sees it as a threat to academic freedom, and is basically sitting on it in hopes that it’ll go away. “Is one student’s ‘sincerely held belief’ religious in nature or might it have been adopted just last week?” ask faculty members. What will it do to the university’s reputation when it becomes “the first university in the nation with an official policy that allows students to seek accommodations in course content”? UD salutes the University of Utah Academic Senate for upholding the sincerely held core belief of the American university - that freedom of expression is central to education. (By the way, in a strange irony, Ms. Axson-Flynn’s theatrical career is taking off like mad. She has just been cast in a starring role in the upcoming American production of Jerry Springer: The Opera. UD asked Ms. Axson-Flynn how she could possibly perform in an opera so notoriously foul-mouthed that the BBC executives who insisted on airing it have received death threats. “I’ll sing 'fuck',” she answered, melodiously. “I just won’t say it.”) |