Feminists are rioting in the streets, civil libertarians are outraged and Title IX supporters are calling for a boycott. Uh, not really, this is the acceptable kind of misogyny I guess:
BLACKSBURG - About 60 faculty members from a Saudi Arabian university are taking courses on Virginia Tech's campus this summer. But the program's setup is a bit different than a typical Tech class.
Men and women from King Abdulaziz University are taking identical faculty development courses at Tech, but meet in gender-specific classes. Tech officials said administrators from the Saudi university separated the sexes to mirror classroom settings at their home institution, which operates separate campuses for men and women.
"This is the way they teach their courses over there, and this is the way they wish their courses to be taught over here," said Tech spokesman Larry Hincker. The university chose to respect the Saudi culture "rather than impress our culture on them," he added.
Why is there no outrage? Is it because non-Americans don't deserve the rights of American citizens?
It provides an interesting juxtaposition when you note how outraged the ACLU and other civil rights groups are about Gitmo--being that the detainees are not American citizens and hence don't share the rights of American detainees--but haven't raised an eyebrow about the goings on at Va Tech. More:
Sedki Riad, a professor of electrical engineering and director of the Tech College of Engineering's international programs, said Tech tries to be sensitive to the cultural and religious needs of students and faculty in Blacksburg as well as its partner institutions.
Va Tech is a state-funded institution. They don't mind making concessions for religious and cultural traditions, as long as those concessions are not extended to Christians and Jews. If those groups so much as asked for accommodations on a lesser scale than the Saudi's, the ACLU would have an injunction in place before the first class met.
H/T: James Taranto (fifth item)
Monday, August 08, 2005
Where's the ACLU When You Need Them
Sphere: Related Content
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
I don't know that I agree here.
Certainly Saudi Arabia should be held accountable for its gender policies, and pressure should be on it to reform.
I don't know that I would target this particular program though.
I would rather have the women be taught here in seperate classes and learn this stuff than not be here at all and not learn it, and that is probably the choice. We could possibly force them to combine women and men into a single class, we could not force them to continue to let women come for this class if we did so however.
From a larger viewpoint though, you are correct that many feminist groups seem willfully blind when it comes to Arab women's issues.
Post a Comment