From the Globe and Mail story on York University and the tension between human rights and religious accommodation -

“Each request for accommodation based on religious beliefs is considered based on the facts in accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code,” Rhonda Lenton, York’s provost, said in an e-mail. But she also said the case is “complicated” by the fact that alternate arrangements were made for the other student to complete the work.

“Students often select online courses to help them navigate all types of personal circumstances that make it difficult for them to attend classes on campus, and all students in the class would normally have access to whatever alternative grading scheme had been put in place,” she said.

In a series of confidential letters, Dr. Singer also argued that granting the request “does not, in my opinion, qualify as a ‘substantial impact’ on any other student’s rights.”

To grant a religious accommodation, the university must decide the beliefs are sincere, and that it will not interfere with other students’ experience or harm the course’s academic integrity.

If that’s accurate, it’s truly sinister. The stipulation that to be granted a religious accommodation must not interfere with other students’ experience is the wrong kind of stipulation: it’s too shallow and too literal. Equality is not just a matter of in the moment “experience”; it’s a lot more than that. It doesn’t necessarily “interfere” with anyone’s experience if a particular set of people is denied entry, or indeed if those people are enslaved or killed. It’s very easy to ignore the unequal treatment meted out to people who aren’t oneself. My “experience” isn’t the criterion for whether or not you should be treated as inferior or alien or impure (and vice versa).

And sincerity isn’t the right criterion either. People tend to be all too “sincere” in their hatred of designated outgroups, and that’s exactly why they treat them like shit.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

There was some awards partly last night and Meryl Streep was there to say something, and what she said was not the usual emollient drivel.

Ezra Pound said, ‘I have not met anyone worth a damn who was not irascible.’ Well, I have: Emma Thompson. Not only is she not irascible, she’s practically a saint. There’s something so consoling about that old trope, but Emma makes you want to kill yourself, because she’s a beautiful artist, she’s a writer, she’s a thinker, she’s a living, acting conscience.

Emma considers, carefully, what the fuck she is putting into the culture. Emma thinks: Is this helpful? Not will it build my brand? Not will it give me billions? Not does this express me? Me! Me! My unique and fabulous self, into all eternity in every universe for all time? Will I get a sequel out of it, or a boat? Or, a perfume contract?

Ezra Pound said, ‘I’ve never met anyone worth a damn who was not irascible.’ Well, he would say that because he was supposedly a hideous anti-Semite. But, his poetry redeems his soul. Disney, who brought joy, arguably, to billions of people, was perhaps, or had some…racist proclivities. He formed and supported an anti-Semitic industry lobby. And he was certainly, on the evidence of his company’s policies, a gender bigot.

Here’s a letter from 1938 stating his company’s policy to a young woman named Mary Ford, of Arkansas, who had made application to Disney for the training program in cartooning. And I’m going to read it here in Emma’s tribute because I know it will tickle our honoree, because she’s also a rabid, man eating feminist, like I am.

You remember that letter, right? I posted about it here quite recently.

Dear Miss Ford,

Your letter of recent date has been received in the inking and painting department for reply. Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that task is performed entirely by young men. For this reason, girls are not considered for the training school. The only work open to women consists of tracing the characters on clear celluloid sheets with India ink, and then filling in the tracing on the reverse side with paint, according to the directions.

When I saw the film, I could just imagine Walt Disney’s chagrin at having to cultivate P.L. Travers’ favor for 20 years that it took to secure the rights to her work. It must have killed him to encounter, in a woman, an equally disdainful and superior creature, a person dismissive of his own, considerable gifts and prodigious output and imagination.

I do like a good rabid feminist.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

And still in Pakistan…another police chief taken out.

A senior police officer known in Pakistan for campaigning against the Taliban has been killed in a bomb blast in Karachi.

Chaudhry Aslam, the head of the city’s anti-terror operations, and at least two others died in an attack on a police convoy in the Essa Nagri area of the city, reports say.

Mr Aslam had survived a number of previous attempts on his life.

The Pakistani Taliban said they carried out Thursday’s attack.

Where they made a wilderness and called it peace.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

From Planned Parenthood Action on Facebook:

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Something I’ve noticed in passing before but noticed more slowly this time: referring to people as “hijabis”. It was in a Twitter exchange between Adele Wilde-Blavatsky and someone I don’t know.

Nick Nipclose @NickNipclose

Criticism of hijab is irrelevant: event was opposing harassment of hijabis not arguing that hijab is flawless

Adele Wilde-Blavatsk @lionfacedakini

but in promoting the event many equated the hijab with the hoodie and symbolically it appeared that way too

Nick Nipclose @NickNipclose

I’m not comparing murders, it could be sad that harassing a hijabi is worse than bothering a hoody clad kid1/2

It struck me more forcibly than it had before what a horrible way to refer to a person or set of people that is. It’s so dehumanizing. She’s not a person, she’s the thing she wears to conceal her head because her religion treats it as an “obligation.”

It’s obvious that the guy doing it sees it as a particularly respectful way of talking, but it isn’t.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Joint statement on legal note to Universiti​es UK against their guidance condoning gender segregatio​n

We are pleased to learn of the legal note submitted to Universities UK (UUK) yesterday in the name of Radha Bhatt, a student of Cambridge University, against their Guidance condoning gender segregation. Legal note can be found here [pdf].

We share Radha’s apprehensions that gender segregation reinforces
negative views specifically about women, undermines their right to
participate in public life on equal terms with men and
disproportionately impedes women from ethnic and religious minorities,
whose rights to education and gender equality are already imperilled.

Radha’s legal submission makes it unmistakably clear that despite
UUK’s protestations, the law could scarcely be more unequivocal on
gender segregation. The practice is specifically condemned by the
Equality Act as amounting to less favourable treatment of women. We
hope it will be noted that this condemnation applies equally to
‘voluntary’ segregation, a notorious misnomer used to pressure
students to comply with ‘Mixed’ and ‘Segregated’ zones.

The existing rights legislation recognises that gender segregation
undermines the dignity of both men and women and creates a hostile,
degrading and humiliating environment. We hope Radha’s
representations will remind UUK of its Public Sector Equality Duty
towards the imperatives of eliminating discrimination, advancing
equality of opportunity and fostering good relations between those who
share protected characteristics.

Abhishek Phadnis, President of the LSE SU Atheist, Secularist and
Humanist Society commented: “The beliefs of visiting speakers are no
excuse to legitimise discrimination against women or any group. We
applaud Radha for her principled and courageous stand, and hope that
UUK will heed her solicitors’ advice to redraft its guidance to
reflect the manifest illegality of gender segregation. Following up on
our rally against gender segregation
< http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/2013/12/12/uuk/>
, we are looking forward to continuing to work with Southall Black
Sisters, One Law for All and Fitnah – Movement for Women’s Liberation
to ensure that the rights of all students in the UK are fully upheld
at all times.”

Pragna Patel of Southall Black Sisters commented: “We welcome the
legal advice which clearly states that UUK’s position on gender
segregation in universities breaches both domestic and international
human rights and discrimination law in substance and in process. We
note that not a single women’s rights organisation was consulted about
the guidance. Had it gone unchallenged, it would have had a profoundly
detrimental impact on black and minority women who already struggle to
assert their fundamental rights to education, freedom and
independence. The whole sorry affair is symptomatic of a bigger battle
waged by the religious right (aided and abetted by public bodies like
the UUK) to control women’s minds and bodies. We must remain alert to
the dangers of religious fundamentalism in all religions because its
very goal is to use public spaces to gain power and to destroy the
very principles of democracy and the universality of women’s human
rights.”

Maryam Namazie, spokesperson for One Law for All and Fitnah –
Movement for Women’s Liberation said: “For too long, cultural
relativists have excused discrimination against women in the name of
‘respect’ for religious beliefs. Whilst the right to belief is
absolute, the right to manifest it is not. Equality must trump
religious beliefs, particularly if we want to respect human beings
rather than beliefs. Moreover, let’s not forget that Muslims are not
a homogeneous group. Endorsing segregation of the sexes means siding
with far-Right Islamists – like Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Federation of
Student Islamic Societies
< https://twitter.com/LSESUASH/status/419618999303819264/photo/1>
, the Islamic Education and Research Academy and the Islamic Human
Rights Commission – at the expense of rights and equality of many
Muslims, ex-Muslims and others. We unequivocally support Radha’s
stand and will continue to fight for an end to gender segregation at
universities, including via teams of sex apartheid busters and a rally
on March 8th
< http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/8-march-2014-london-rally-and-march-against-sex-apartheid-london/>
.”

You can find regular updates on our campaign here.
< https://www.facebook.com/pages/Separate-is-never-equal-Yes-to-equality-no-to-segregation/1389037734676086>

For further enquiries please contact:

Maryam Namazie
One Law for All and Fitnah – Movement for Women’s Liberation
maryamnamazie@gmail.com
077 1916 6731
@maryamNamazie

Pragna Patel
Southall Black Sisters
Pragna@southallblacksisters.co.uk
02085719595
@SBSisters

Chris Moos
LSE SU Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society
c.m.moos@lse.ac.uk
074 2872 0599
@LSESUASH

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

This happened:

Aitzaz Hasan, 15, was with friends outside school when they spotted a man wearing a suicide vest.

Despite the pleas of his fellow students, he decided to confront and capture the bomber who then detonated his vest, his cousin told the BBC.

So that’s the end for Aitzaz Hasan, at age 15.

The incident took place on Monday in Ibrahimzai, a Shia-dominated region of Hangu, in north-western Pakistan. There were almost 2,000 students in attendance at the time of the attack, media reports say.

“My cousin sacrificed his life saving his school and hundreds of students and school fellows,” his cousin Mudassar Hassan Bangish told the BBC’s Aleem Maqbool.

I’m having trouble seeing the screen clearly enough to compose this post.

His family have also spoken of Aitzaz’s actions in Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper.

“My son made his mother cry, but saved hundreds of mothers from crying for their children,” Mujahid Ali, Aitzaz’s father is quoted as saying.

Damn this screen.

On Twitter, users are paying tribute to Aitzaz using the hashtags #onemillionaitzaz and #AitzazBraveheart echoing the language used online around figures such as Malala and the Delhi rape victim, whose death galvanised Indian public opinion and prompted changes in rape laws there.

Former Pakistani ambassador to the US Sherry Rehman tweeted:“Hangu’s shaheed Aitzaz Hasan is #Pakistan’s pride. Give him a medal at least. Another young one with heartstopping courage #AitzazBraveheart.”

Hangu is close to Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal regions, which have a strong Taliban and al-Qaeda presence and the area is also known for sectarian violence against Shia Muslims.

Wouldn’t it be nice if human beings would just stop killing each other over “sectarian” bullshit?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A jaw-dropper from York University in Toronto.

After refusing to honour a male student’s request to be separated from his female classmates for religious reasons, a York University professor has found himself at odds with administrators who assert he broke their “obligation to accommodate.”

Say WHAT???

There’s an obligation to accommodate a male student’s request to be “separated” from female students? Are you fucking kidding me? 

Do these administrators not realize where this goes? It goes back to what we’ve been struggling to escape from for centuries. Men getting “separation” from women means women are imprisoned in seclusion, purdah, the harem, the kitchen. It is not something that should be “accommodated” in a university or anywhere else public. (Except a church or mosque or temple? No, actually, not except those. If women don’t want to be separated, then no, I don’t think male requests for separation should be “accommodated.” But I get that that’s usually not something for outsiders to mess with [unless perhaps the women ask them to]. But on principle? No. No, I don’t think such requests should be accommodated, even in religious buildings.)

The professor ran the student’s initial memo past a Judaic scholar and two Islamic scholars, all of whom were puzzled by the request.

The Judaic scholar found no problem with an Orthodox Jew attending a co-ed group session. One of the Islamic scholars, in turn, declared simply, “unless he is asked to be physical with a female student, which I assume he isn’t, there is absolutely no justification for not interacting with females in public space.”

Mr. Grayson’s colleagues appeared to agree. At an October departmental meeting they passed a resolution forbidding any religious accommodations that contributed to the “marginalizations of other students, faculty or teaching assistants.”

And the student backed off. Grayson said the student was a reasonable guy. All was copacetic…except not quite.

Nevertheless, the rejection incensed university brass. According to Mr. Grayson, on October 18, he received a letter from the Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies ordering him to accommodate the student’s wishes.

As per documents provided by the professor, one of the keystones of the Dean’s position is the assertion that allowing the student to opt out of female interaction would not affect the “experience of other students in the class”—provided the professor kept quiet about it.

Oh yeah? So of course Grayson, being a sociologist, surveyed his female students, who saw the matter rather differently.

The response confirmed his suspicions. Female students in particular reacted with outrage and even threats of legal action.

“What if the male student asked that the women be seated at the back of the class or on the other side of a partition so that he would not have to see them?” wrote one.

What if a white student requested separation from non-white students? The parallel is obvious enough, except apparently to the Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University…which is a pretty shocking state of affairs. “Liberal” Arts? Really? You sure about that?

The Dean dismissed the November survey, saying he was not “persuaded that other students’ political views on the subject are either a relevant or an appropriate consideration.”

“I am unpersuaded that it is even arguable that the non-participation of this one male student in group work affects in any way any other student’s human rights,” he wrote.

As York’s winter semester kicks off, said Mr. Grayson, the order is still standing.

“There’s been no reversal of position,” he said.

The Facebook page Separate is never equal urges writing to the Dean.

Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies of York University Martin Singer ordered Professor Paul Grayson to “accommodate” the wishes of a student who requested to be separated from his female classmates for religious reasons.

Dean Singer said that allowing the student to opt out of female interaction would not affect the “experience of other students in the class”—provided the Professor Grayson kept quiet about it. In an October 18 email, the Dean specifically told Prof 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.”

This is simply outrageous. The issue has not been resolved yet, so please email Dean Singer to tell him about our experience with gender segregation in the UK, how it affects vulnerable students and the huge reputational damage Universities UK had for condoning gender segregation.

martin.singer@yorku.ca

You can also tweet here: https://twitter.com/YorkUnews

You know your duty.

Update: there is a petition to sign. Well done Kiran Opal for creating it. Thank you Kausik for pointing it out.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Via Leo Igwe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reAVJ9m3P2k

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Pew did a survey on -

well this is how they titled the summary:

How people in Muslim countries prefer women to dress in public

Which is annoying, because there aren’t “Muslim countries.” Even the ones that have constitutions saying Islam is the official religion aren’t “Muslim countries”…

…but never mind, one knows what they mean.

Then again it’s annoying for another reason, which is that it sounds so bossy.

Never mind, never mind – what about the survey?

It’s depressing. Almost everyone in every country surveyed thinks women should have their heads bandages up to one degree or another. Lebanon did manage a whopping 49% who think no bandage at all is best, but even that is under half. In Saudi Arabia 63% opt for the black bag with a slit for the eyes.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Liberty is not happy about the Anti-social Behaviour Crime and Policing Bill.

The Anti-social Behaviour Crime and Policing Bill proposes to replace existing orders (such as ASBOs) with a new  generation of injunctions which are easier to obtain, harder to comply with and have harsher penalties.

The Bill would also introduce unfair double punishment for the vulnerable, as social tenants and their families will face mandatory eviction for breaching a term of an injunction.

Other measures in the Bill include some restrictions on Schedule 7 stop and search powers which, while welcome, unfortunately come nowhere near addressing the dangerous breadth and intrusiveness of these powers.

The Bill also weakens key safeguards in our already heavily-criticised extradition system by removing the automatic right of appeal against extradition orders.

Another item to keep a beady eye on then.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Originally a comment by Dan Bye on He looked it up in a dictionary.

Those who think the law as written is potentially a danger to free speech are quite correct, and it’s also worth noting that it mirrors the law in relation to snail mail, originally dating to 1935, where case law has established (my source is the commentary in Halsbury’s Laws of England) that “The test of obscenity is objective and the character of the addressee is immaterial.”

In the wake of the Gay News Trial in the UK, the then editor of The Freethinker, the late great Bill McIlroy, was fined for sending copies of the poem through the post. He was hoping to trigger another blasphemy prosecution at the time, but the authorities sidestepped that embarrassment by using different legislation!

The current law in relation to post, if anyone wants to look it up is ss.85 of the Postal Services Act 2000:

(3) A person commits an offence if he sends by post a postal packet which encloses—

(a) any indecent or obscene print, painting, photograph, lithograph, engraving, cinematograph film or other record of a picture or pictures, book, card or written communication, or

(b) any other indecent or obscene article (whether or not of a similar kind to those mentioned in paragraph (a)).

Similar laws apply to telephone communication.

It’s also worth noting that there is case law in relation to all this, so you have to read the laws in relation to the way cases have been decided.

In relation to “menacing”, that was tested in the successful appeal in Chambers v DPP (the airport bombing joke on Twitter case), where context was found to be important. The judges in that case also said:

Satirical, or iconoclastic, or rude comment, the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, banter or humour, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it should and no doubt will continue at their customary level, quite undiminished by this legislation. Given the submissions by Mr Cooper, we should perhaps add that for those who have the inclination to use “Twitter” for the purpose, Shakespeare can be quoted unbowdlerised, and with Edgar, at the end of King Lear, they are free to speak not what they ought to say, but what they feel.

Which of course might help you win if you got to trial, but wouldn’t necessarily stop a prosecution in the first place.

“Grossly offensive” was tested in Collins v DPP (2006). According to Halsbury’s:

It is for the justices to determine as a question of fact whether a message is grossly offensive for these purposes, applying the standards of an open and just multi-racial society (ie via the application of reasonably enlightened, but not perfectionist, contemporary standards); and the words must be judged in the context of the message and all relevant circumstances

So whether something is “indecent” or “obscene” is an objective test based on community standards, but whether something is “offensive” can take other aspects into consideration.

Halsburys:

Whether a message falls into the category of grossly offensive depends on whether it is couched in terms liable to cause gross offence to those to whom it relates

and:

For an offence to be committed the defendant has to intend his words to be grossly offensive to those to whom they relate, or be aware that they might be taken to be so.

The Collins case, by the way, involved racist language via telephone and telephone answerphone to the office of an MP over 2 years. At the original trial the charges were dismissed, the language found to be offensive but not grossly offensive, and arising from frustration at the way his, Collins’, concerns were being dealt with. The DPP appealed, and won.

The judgment is worth reading.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

From the Borowitz Report at the New Yorker - dateline Minnepolis:

The so-called polar vortex caused hundreds of injuries across the Midwest today, as people who said “so much for global warming” and similar comments were punched in the face.

Stay safe, people.

The meteorology professor Davis Logsdon, of the University of Minnesota, issued a safety warning to residents of the states hammered by the historic low temperatures: “If you are living within the range of the polar vortex and you have something idiotic to say about climate change, do not leave your house.”

Say it to the mirror, or the dog.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Conor Friedersdorf gets what the problem is with the kind of harassment women are subject to online, although he didn’t at first. He didn’t until he guest-blogged for Megan McArdle.

My stint running her page while she vacationed included the keys to the blog’s inbox. Even as someone who’d previously blogged about immigration in California’s Inland Empire, fielding insults and aggressive invective as vile as any I could imagine, I was shocked by a subset of her blog’s correspondence. To this day, I don’t know if I was experiencing a typical or atypical week. Perhaps in the abstract, there isn’t any threat more extreme than the death threats I’d received and brushed off as unserious. But I read emails and comments addressed at McArdle that expanded my notion of how disturbing online vitriol could be. And it took my actually reading them for my perspective to change.  

I’d never been exposed to anything like it before.

Later, when my duties included reading email sent to Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish, I discovered that gay men, too, are subject to this sort of comment that was previously invisible to me: not just over-the-top invective, but intensely personal missives of hyper-sexualized hate.

That is exactly right. Yet he says it’s the best he can do but it’s inadequate…

That’s the best I can do to sum them up, but it’s an inadequate description. And an excerpt wouldn’t much help, because to really understand how it feels to read these missives (to the extent that someone other than the intended recipient can even begin to understand), it’s necessary to experience their regularity. Instead of a lone jerk heckling you as you walk down a major street, imagine dozens of different people channeling the same hyper-aggressive hatefulness, popping up repeatedly on random blocks for hours on end. That’s what some bloggers had to endure over the course of years to make it.

See? Isn’t that exactly what I said in response to those stupid tweets by fleetstreetfox this morning? Yes it is.

I began to ask female friends if they experienced this same phenomenon. And not only were they close to unanimous in avowing that they did—many also cited a weariness at gendered online abuse to explain why they either shuttered their personal blogs and stopped writing for the public, or shifted their journalistic efforts to a traditional format rather than the more personalized blog format. This is the very time that people like Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein were building the personal blogs from which they would become successful national pundits. One wonders how many equally talented women we missed out on reading due to misogynists hurling vile invective at rising female journalists.

Oh, no, we don’t wonder that, because we can be perfectly sure none of them were equally talented, because they are after all women.

Sorry, bitter sarcasm. But this is why I find the line about “stop whining and just do a great job” so very annoying.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Madeleine Teahan (that seems like a peculiarly Proustian or edible sort of name) muses in a post at the Catholic Herald (yes, that would be the well-known, even “iconic”, religion of the same name) about gender equality and toys for girls versus boys. She wants everyone to realize that men have problems too, because sadly that fact has entirely disappeared in all the noise about princess dolls.

Is there anything really wrong with encouraging our sons to play with cars and our daughters to play with Barbie? There is a strange paradox with modern-day champions of diversity: it is that they are determined to propagate the idea that we are all exactly the same. Accepting common differences between the sexes has become taboo.

A spot of having it both ways there. The naughty champions of diversity say we are all exactly the same, when they should be saying that all girls are exactly the same and all boys are exactly the same but girls are radically different from boys and vice versa.

She’s wrong. The point isn’t that everybody is exactly the same, the point is that everybody isn’t, and therefore tastes shouldn’t be imposed (or “encouraged”) on the basis of gender. There is something wrong with assuming that all girls do and should want to play with Barbie.

Just as with femininity, traditional masculinity should be welcomed and honed, not suppressed or abolished. The fanatical emphasis on gender equality risks bulldozing men completely out of the picture, leaving them at a loss as to what role models it is socially acceptable to aspire to and how exactly they should fit into society.

Although it is often perceived as the enemy of equality between the sexes, the Church has a lot to offer men

That caused me to burst into laughter instead of reading the rest of the sentence. I just love that. “The church has a lot to offer men…” – yes, it does, especially if they’re the kind of men who want a monopoly on saying what’s what. One thing the church has to offer men of that type is the fact that it’s the last big institution that is still allowed to mandate and enforce an all-male power structure.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)