Harvard restricts gym use to accomodate Muslim Women

[S O F I]

Harvard gym restriction stirs controversy
To accommodate Muslim women, university sets aside ‘no men’ time
By Bob Considine
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 11:12 a.m. PT, Mon., March. 10, 2008

Harvard University’s trial policy of denying men use of one of its gyms for six hours a week to accommodate Muslim women has been an exercise in frustration for some students and off-campus critics.

Since Feb. 4, the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center at the Ivy League school has been open only to women from 8-10 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays and 3-5 p.m. on Mondays — allowing Muslim women, who typically cover their hair and most of their skin to follow religious and cultural code, to dress more suitably for exercising.

Hussein Ibish, executive director of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership, said complaints that the policy is unfair are unfounded.

“It’s about expanding the range of choices,” Ibish told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer on Monday. “Women, for all kinds of reasons, don’t want to exercise in front of men. It’s a minority of women, but there are.

This modesty business sometimes comes from religion, sometimes from culture … They just don’t want to be ogled by men when they’re working out.”

Michael Smerconish, a talk show host and author of “Muzzled: From T-Ball to Terrorism — True Stories That Should Be Fiction,” countered that the rule shows “political correctness run amok again at Harvard.”

“Six individuals out of 6,000 [students] complain,” Smerconish told Lauer. “Those six had access [to the campus gyms] and Harvard’s response is to institute a discriminatory practice where now half are closed out of the gym.”

Working it out
In January, a group of six Muslim women, with the backing of the Harvard College Women’s Center, requested specified hours to utilize the gym.

The Quadrangle Athletic Center is one of three large recreational facilities on the Cambridge, Mass., campus and the main home for intramural activities. There are 12 residential houses that also have workout facilities. And the women-only hours at Quadrangle account for just six of the 70 hours the gym is open per week.

Yet there have been many student complaints and an unfavorable editorial in Harvard’s Crimson newspaper.

Other student publications across the country have also expounded on the controversial ruling.

But Robert Mitchell, communications director of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts, said many accommodations for students’ religious needs have been made in the past — including prayer areas for Hindu and Muslim students and the rescheduling of exams during religious holidays.

The policy will be re-evaluated at the end of the current semester.

Smerconish said Harvard’s decision to allow specified access to the Muslim women was a by-product of a national hysteria involving the Muslim population.

“The hysteria results in Harvard bending over for the Muslim community — something they would never do for Catholics or for Jews,” he said.

“Mr. Ibish talks about the element of ogling or looking at these women. What does that veil say about the rest of us? It says our eyes cannot be trusted because we’ll leer at those women. Let them work out like everybody else.”

Ibish angrily retorted that the Harvard’s action was nondiscriminatory.

“You can’t convince me that this is going to be an onerous discrimination of the oppressed males of Harvard,” Ibish said. “This is just a very small concession, a few hours in one gym out of many, to allow some women who want to exercise in private. Under the law, no way is this discriminatory.”

Smerconish and Ibish agreed that fair play could come in the form of a corresponding gym allowing only male-access hours. But the mutuality stopped there.

“It would never happen and you know it,” he told Ibish.

“If men wanted it, it would,” Ibish responded.


© 2007 MSNBC Interactive

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23556551/

In a nutshell, Harvard accepted a petition by an Islamic organization of women that attends the school to let them exercise six hours out of the week in one of the gyms without any men present. It's caused controversy. What do you guys think?

 

[dillaxx]

i dont wanna get on an islam-bashing tirade here, but why? why should we make special accomodations for them?? is being muslim a handicap? because this definitely seems like a situation for handicapped people... im hindu, can we stop burger king and mcdonalds from serving beef? how about we just ban meat in all restaurants all together??

and it is discriminatory towards muslim men because they too need to be covered from a portion of their body as welll..

fuck this... you can do crunches and push ups in your dorm room as well.. no need to rent out the gym like a banquet hall

 

[Duke]

I dunno, guys...I consider myself a pretty liberal guy, and I fully agree that you have to reach out your hand to help a process like integration, but c'mon...these days muslims are treated as if they're made out of glass, everyone afraid to burn themself on political correctness. ugh..

 

[ill-matic]

shits ridiculous. fuck them. too many concessions are made. you need to make a comprimise. id tell them to fuck off with their petition

 

[Casey]

im hindu, can we stop burger king and mcdonalds from serving beef? how about we just ban meat in all restaurants all together??

i'm down for the crusade.

 

[ARon]

Muslims or people who look like they might be Muslim are treated good??? I need to move to where you guys live, must be a nice little Utopia. I'm not Muslim but it's not hard to see the discrimination they go through on the daily.

 

[Bobby Sands]

6 hours out of the week is nothing.

 

[keco52]

Prayer in school is unconstitutional but we can kick all men out of a gym to accomodate one certain religion?

 

[Shahin]

That's great.

 

[Rukas]

Prayer in school is unconstitutional but we can kick all men out of a gym to accomodate one certain religion?

Exactly. This is fucking bullshit. Kick all the men out because 6 muslim women wanted to train by themselves.

This is just beyond stupid. Look I am an immigrant myself, I didnt expect Australia to conform to my way of doing things. When you move to a different country you move to that life, you dont bring your baggage with it. If you want segregation like that stay in your own country. If you dont like the way things are being done where you are going, dont go there. Simple.

I hate shit like this.

 

[Shahin]

This is just beyond stupid. Look I am an immigrant myself, I didnt expect Australia to conform to my way of doing things. When you move to a different country you move to that life, you dont bring your baggage with it. If you want segregation like that stay in your own country. If you dont like the way things are being done where you are going, dont go there. Simple.

I hate shit like this.

Why do you assume they are imigrants? And even if they are, if they are citizens shouldn't they be allowed the same right as any other citizen to try to make changes for their benefit? besides what's so horrible with 6 out of 70 hours of the week being set aside for women to be able to work out without men staring at them all the time. Plenty of gyms have women-only hours and it's not only muslim women who preder them. My girl for example isn't particularly religious but she only goes during the women-only hours because she's uncomfortable with having men staring at her when she's trying to work out.

 

[keco52]

Why do you assume they are imigrants? And even if they are, if they are citizens shouldn't they be allowed the same right as any other citizen to try to make changes for their benefit? besides what's so horrible with 6 out of 70 hours of the week being set aside for women to be able to work out without men staring at them all the time. Plenty of gyms have women-only hours and it's not only muslim women who preder them. My girl for example isn't particularly religious but she only goes during the women-only hours because she's uncomfortable with having men staring at her when she's trying to work out.

There are women only gyms where I live...and I'm sure there are some in their area too. It makes a lot more sense for the 6 of them to go out of their way to an all womens gym. It's a public school/gym...NO they don't have to accomodate your relgion. What if the men decide...you know we really don't feel comfortable working out with women...can we have our own time too? NO YOU FUCKING CAN'T!!!

And seriously...who only exercises 3x a week? What do you do the other days? Wtf is the point?

 

[Shahin]

There are women only gyms where I live...and I'm sure there are some in their area too. It makes a lot more sense for the 6 of them to go out of their way to an all womens gym. It's a public school/gym...NO they don't have to accomodate your relgion. What if the men decide...you know we really don't feel comfortable working out with women...can we have our own time too? NO YOU FUCKING CAN'T!!!

And seriously...who only exercises 3x a week? What do you do the other days? Wtf is the point?

They chose to accomodate these women. No one is arguing they have to, but it's probably in their best interest since islam is growing pretty fast. And Harvard is not a public school.

 

[keco52]

They chose to accomodate these women. No one is arguing they have to, but it's probably in their best interest since islam is growing pretty fast. And Harvard is not a public school.

I know it's a private school...that's not what I meant. It's not an Islamic or Catholic or Jewish school.

 

[Sebastian]

You must be a fucking idiot to support this.

 

[Illuminattile]

If 6 people had told Harvard that they didn't want to exercise with black people or Jews or Muslims or gay people or fat people or people with red hair, then I'm sure Harvard would have accommodated those people too...

 

[yak pac fatal]

aint that a bitch

 

[PuffnScruff]

it's harvard...what do you expect

 

[not really ken]

There's women only gyms everywhere in my city. There's even a woman only taxi service. It's not an uncommon type of arrangement. There's woman only swimming sessions at state owned swimming pools.

If they removed the fact that this petition was handed in my muslims, then this wouldn't even register on the 'I give a shit' radar for 99% of the people. Especially since it's a decision taken by a private institute for a privately owned gym. Ultimately, economics, not your emotion based reflexes, are going to dictate what internal decisions Harvard makes - it's the good old American principle of Money talks....So where's the problem Chicken little?

 

[dillaxx]

they make way too many things for women only these days.. women-only taxis? wtf?