Maybe you do what the Indiana schools seem to have tried to do, perhaps
unsuccessfully, and what my law school gives law students, a certain number
of excused absences. They use them however they want. After that, the
school examines additional requests for excused absences extremely
carefully. I understand and share Steve's discomfort with simply
recognizing and granting majoritarian holidays but the fact is that they
are days that most people will take by tradition, whether or not they
celebrate them for religious reasons. However, I suspect that most people
don't take Good Friday in the US off anymore, or All Saints Day, or All
Souls Day, even though around here some people celebrate those days and
some of my students and some of my colleagues are not around part of those
latter two days. Most people come to work. However, Good Friday is a
holiday at LSU. (But Memorial Day is not, and and most people who take a
vacation day that day are from the north, I think). Would most people come
to work or go to school if Good Friday were not a holiday here? I suspect
yes. Would they come to work or go to school if Christmas were not a
holiday? I suspect no, but I could be wrong. Money and grades are powerful
motivators.
Christine Corcos
Associate Professor of Law
Faculty Graduate Studies Program Supervisor
Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies Program
LSU A&M
W325 Law Building
1 East Campus Drive
Baton Rouge LA 70803
tel: 225/578-8327
fax: 225/578-3677
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Steven Jamar
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Law & Religion
issues for Law Academics <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: cc: (bcc: Christine
A Corcos/ccorcos/LSU)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Student
reprimanded for religious absences
ts.ucla.edu
11/24/2004 10:38 AM
Please respond to Law &
Religion issues for Law
Academics
Then where is the solution -- no general holidays -- schools don't ever
close for Christmas or Yom Kippur despite the fact that significant
percentages of the students would miss classes? Minorities are
minorities and general rules are crafted for majorities in the main, or
large minorities.
I'm just unconvinced that going to non-mandatory religious gathering
out of town would qualify as the sort of thing needing accommodation as
a constitutional matter.
Steve
On Wednesday, November 24, 2004, at 11:17 AM, Newsom Michael wrote:
> But are the rules neutral? Public schools typically accommodate
> majoritarian religious holidays and holy days â both Christian and
> Jewish (leaving aside certain Christian sects, as in the case under
> discussion and leaving aside, perhaps, some Jewish sects) but do not
> accommodate many, if not all, non-majoritarian religious holidays and
> holy days.
>
>
>
> In our increasingly pluralistic society, accommodation of all holidays
> and holy days would present serious administrative and fiscal
> problems. But there is no getting around the fact of a bias in favor
> of âtypicalâ Christian and Jewish holidays and holy days, and there is
> something fundamentally unfair about that bias as it plays itself out
> in the real world, unless, of course, we adopt Scaliaâs dismissive
> view of religious minorities in Smith.
>
>
--
Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017
Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8567
2900 Van Ness Street NW mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Washington, DC 20008 http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/
"Love the pitcher less and the water more."
Sufi Saying
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