J. Paul Grayson, a sociology professor at York University in Toronto, received a request from a male student asking to be excused from participating in a group assignment, in which the student would have been obliged to converse with female students.
Grayson said no to the student but decided to use his request to test York University’s administration—beginning with his Dean—to see how they would deal with it. The administrators in fact decided that since no rights of female students were being withheld, the student’s request could be accommodated.
At that point, Grayson seized the opportunity that the administration’s response afforded him and leaked the details of this case to the media, dragging half of Canada into a proverbial tempest in a teapot that centered on the looming supposed dangers of religious accommodation.
The Quebec government—which is in the throes of proposing legislation intended to prevent people who wear religiously significant clothing from working in the public sector—was absolutely delighted. As reported by Toronto’s Globe and Mail , Grayson had already tipped off secularists when he came out in support of Quebec’s so-called Charter of Values. An affront to religious freedom , this Charter is designed to bully minorities, and especially Muslim immigrants, into assimilation in Canada’s mostly French-speaking, largely lapsed Catholic province.Click link below to read rest of article:
What to make of this bewildering feeding frenzy? Three things, to start with.
Professor Grayson’s Crusade | Web Exclusives | First Things
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