Is it sensitive to my religion or belief?
Yet another confusion between equality and deference to religion.
Something called the “Equality Challenge Unit” is doing a survey called Religion and Belief in Higher Education. Given the name of the “unit,” one smells a rat at once. One smells bossy people creeping around universities demanding more “respect” for religions and religious beliefs in the name of “equality.”
The ECU said the research will “inform the further development of more inclusive policy and practice”.
Ah yes – just what we’re afraid of. We don’t think universities should be “more inclusive” of unreasonable beliefs.
In a letter to David Ruebain, the ECU’s chief executive, [Keith] Porteous Wood takes issue with some survey questions, including one asking students if they agree that “the content of my course is presented in a way which is sensitive to my religion or belief”.
That’s why we don’t think universities should be more “inclusive” in that way. Being “inclusive” should not extend to welcoming mistakes and fantasies into the curriculum.
An ECU spokeswoman said that Derby was chosen through a “competitive and comprehensive tendering process”, and that “assuming that a religious academic wouldn’t be able to conduct robust and unbiased research raises several equality issues in itself”.
This is where we came in.
Well, this should be interesting as the teaching of basic evolution will offend many religious sensibilities. Philosophy 101 will face similar complaints. Hope the professors have tenure.
A whole lot of faculty would be in trouble, then. Some of us were trained in a by-gone era in which you were taught (and I know this sounds crazy!) to teach the material. Period. The students’ personal beliefs are exactly that, their personal beliefs. The number one thing you need to be “sensitive” to, is learning.
See, to my mind, if you’re doing your job properly, you’re not asking students about their personal beliefs. So there’s no way for me to know what their beliefs actually are. How do I calibrate my teaching to be “sensitive” to these beliefs if I am (properly) ignorant of what they are?
Yes,the term ‘inclusive’ has acquired a rather sinister, Orwellian connotation when used by modern social engineers and, unfortunately, the ‘bossy people’ have escaped the universities and applied this concept in the real world. The adoption of Islamic dress codes at some public swimming pools is, regrettably, an outcome of this misguided policy.
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And here was poor ignorant and intolerant me thinking that one of the reasons for going through higher education was challenging your previously held notions about the world. How entirely close minded about me.
People need to get over themselves and we as a culture need to get over our obsession with ‘beliefs.’ That something is valuable to you or that you hold it as taboo does not mean anyone has to or that they should censor themselves when dealing with it.
If you go to university expecting your beliefs not to be challenged, then you don’t belong at a university. If you go through four years of university and never have any of your beliefs challenged, then you either believe nothing or are being taught nothing.
They probably think they are carrying out the honorable task of ferreting out all of those nasty bullies who are shouting racial abuse at women just because they covered their hair with a scarf. We all know there are lots of professors who do that all the time.
What they are actually doing is paving the way for complaints of “I deserve an A in evolutionary biology for saying Jebus did it” to be taken seriously.
I don’t doubt there will be plenty of academics eager to hammer this nonsense into oblivion. Most of us don’t like being told what and how to teach. But there will be enough who support it to make it very hard to get rid of once it’s established.
I would end with a plea that this gibberish not be exported outside the UK, but that’s not very realistic, is it?
Oh dear – I’m afraid none of you are sensitive enough. This is very shocking.
Meh. I’ve been looking around at this stuff, and it seems rather harmless. This doesn’t seem to be activists looking to impose greater accommodation of religion on the academy. It seems to be people who saw that there’s money to be made seeming to do something. We all know there’s a lot of that around.
Ain’t gonna happen. If there’s one discipline we command, it’s biology, and, because of the curricula they enforce (think every nurse, premed, pharmacist, etc), biologists have no experience, and no expectation of, being dictated to. I don’t think I’m being naïve here. That’s the way it is, and we should be grateful for it.
I know that, in the UK, universities have serious problems with Islamic student societies, and those must be dealt with. It doesn’t necessarily hurt in that regard if Muslim students are under the impression that they’re being listened to. (That’s why the money was there.) In any event, in the realm of higher education, I think we have more reason to worry about pseudoscience than religion.
Anger good. Angry despair bad.
Ken, well, maybe. But there’s already quite a strong tendency to be “sensitive” to religious beliefs in the UK, and to turn a blind eye to a lot of nasty stuff or even to defend it, on account of that “sensitivity”…so more social pressure in that direction may not be a great thing. But it may just be some waffle that no one pays any attention to. That would be good.
ORAC has had enough posts about healing touch and Reiki being taught, or at least condoned, in nursing schools that I have doubts about just how much control biologists have over the nursing curriculum.
I disagree. Providing the legal precedent for ‘listening’, even if we intend it to be lipservice,, opens the door to expectations and the inevitable litigation.
And in the current institutional climate, other non religious students who dare to openly discuss or challenge hogwash will themselves be subject to muzzling (speech and conduct policies)
Nothing like the religionists pretending that they’re actually a tiny and powerless minority instead of the culturally dominant group.
@9 Ken: surely you don’t mean that we should listen to Muslim students because they’re Muslims, and even less that they should have the expectation that their religion entitles them to be heard? Rather, they would be listened to for having something worthwhile to say, one hopes.