You are acting like a moron about this issue. Or perhaps you are acting like a provocateur trying to drive up page views. It's hard to tell the difference. Your idiotic suicide bomber crack -- yes, Richard, all Muslims are suicide bombers! ha ha! how droll! -- points toward the former.
 

R-Brad,

Jewish students who keep kosher have a section of the dining hall counter reserved for them... what's the difference, really? If a single space is kept aside for a group of any definition that requests it, for a specific short time each week, what's the problem? I seem to remember, at Yale in the 80s, religious groups reserving and meeting in the college common rooms with about the same (in)frequency. And of course this must be true everywhere, and for decades. I fail to see the significance of this issue, much less understand your outrage.
 

When you consider the number of institutions, both inside and outside of higher education, that make accommodations such as this on a daily basis, it really requires some effort to get worked up about the issue. I mean, what's next - separate bathrooms for men and women?

Gasp!
 

Actually Yale -- quite rightly -- refused to let Jewish male students out of housing financial obligations at one point, when the students said they couldn't live in mixed dorms with women. So these things are not done all the time. This is not space to practice their religion -- this is public space for all to use, and for exercising in this case. What if the women said they couldn't use lab space alongside men because they have to roll up their sleeves? What if they said they didn't feel comfortable speaking up in lectures aside men? Where does it stop?
 

12:51, yeah, "What if?" "What if?" "What if?"

Since those things aren't happening, who cares? Do you really think this gym policy is the first step down the slippery slope to theocracy? That's silly.

And for good or ill, Harvard is emphatically NOT a "public space for all to use," so that doesn't fly.
 

Some of you folks are confusing apples and oranges: allowing student organizations to schedule a room or Jewish students to eat kosher does not come at anyone else's expense. Banning men from a gym on the basis of a religious/cultural sensitivity does.

As 12:51 points out, it is possible to say no to these things....and as I would add, it's not just about Muslims. It's about any religious group wanting to impose itself and its views on those who are not religious.

A related but separate point is that we must assume that our institutions promote some core values—and while religious tolerance is one, so is the idea that your faith is not more important than the common values of our culture.

Of course it's a balancing act. But in giving in here, Harvard has prioritized religious sensibilities over those of a secular democracy.
 

Sorry, R-Brad -- scheduling a common room means, basically, that others aren't supposed to use it then. So a common property, like a gym, is temporarily out of service for the others normally entitled to use it. So if a gym does the same for an hour or two once a week, again... what's wrong with that?
 

There is a difference between scheduling a space so that one group can temporarily use it—a classroom, for example, so that a class can be taught—and reserving a space so that one specific group can be banned from it.

Perhaps Harvard should have, oh, "whites-only" hours at the gym. Well, that would be discriminatory, right? Of course. So why is such discrimination acceptable when it's in service of a religion?
 

Rich, that's silly. They're reserving a space so they can use it--not to ban others. They ask (presumably) for a small space for a short amount of time that, in toto, doesn't seriously inconvenience others (are they asking for all-day Friday?). There's a name for the kind of false or specious argument that turns everything into "What if it was whites-only"> but I only have a bachelor's degree and can't think of it. It's certainly sophistry of a kind.
 

It would be interesting for a reporter to sit outside and see how many Muslim women come and go (i.e. was it really a request made out of a desire to use the gym).

I think it's easy to accuse RB of making too big a deal of this, you can usually do that whenever someone is talking about the principle of a matter...doesn't make him wrong. Good for you, Rich, not backing down.
 

Thank you. Much nicer to hear that than to be called a moron!
 

"it is a slippery slope."

No it isn't.

Is it anti-male, Richard, if I point out that in over half of your posts of the last couple days you're being a total dick?

Think very hard before you pursue this Muslim/bomber line of thinking any further as a motif for your blog. It'll certainly mean the end of my participation and should mean the end of any claim to relevance for university life.

SE
 

Harvard should consider separate gym schedules for people who perspire and for people who don't perspire. Let the latter group catch bad BO from the first group.
 

Richard is right. The analogy with Jewish students reserving a room breaks down because student organizations can't exclude any Harvard student on the basis of race, gender, or religion. (Only recognized organizations can reserve rooms, and to get recognition your organization must have "a constitution and by-laws whose membership clause shall not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability.") So the Jewish students group couldn't reserve a room and exclude non-Jews from the meeting. Nor could the Black Students Assn hang a "blacks only" sign on the door when they hold their meetings. In this situation the opposite is happening. At the behest of certain students, Harvard is hanging a "women only" sign on the door of the gym during certain hours, and that seems to me a departure from Harvard's practice since 1977, when it assumed responsibility for the nonacademic side of women's lives and forced desegregation of all officially recognized activities [with two exceptions only: athletic teams and choral singing groups]. This exclusion has arisen through a curious alliance of religiously conservative students with the "All Genders Welcome" Women's Center, but the same principle would be at stake here however it came about. I do understand the feelings of those who think this is a trivial compromise and no one should worry about it, but it's a violation nonetheless of a principle that has been sustained honorably for a long time (and, at times, only with some pain, but I'll skip those details!).