Students to get Religious Exemptions to Education

Should you be able to simply ignore some portion of your education and continue as if nothing happened if you have religious objections to it? Well, you can at the University of Utah now - a student in the theater program objected to having to read profanity in a play and wanted to be exempt from that; rather than fight in court, the university caved in.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

So can future theater students choose not to swear? Will a creationist biology major be forced to complete assignments on evolution? Should religious college athletes be required to play in Sunday games? Those are issues for a seven-member U. committee charged with drafting the policy and an appeals process for students who disagree with a faculty member's decision.

If a theater student can choose not to swear, then a biology student should be able to choose not to do things related to evolution. The latter is obviously stupid and would undermine the whole point of studying biology.

U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell dismissed the lawsuit before it could get to trial in 2001. The case went up on appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which revived the lawsuit earlier this year. The appellate court judges said schools can regulate speech as long as their reasons for doing so relate to legitimate educational concerns. But schools must prove they apply their restrictions in a neutral and consistent way to all students.

If the student in question was the only one being forced to read profanity, then she might be able to argue that she was being singled out — and that would have been wrong. If, however, she is expected to do no more and no less than everyone else, then she didn’t have a case. So why did the university cave in? I don’t know. It’s a pity that they didn’t stand up for the educational process; now, it’s much more likely that students there and maybe elsewhere will be cheated.

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