Sweet smokin' Jesus. My university just rolled out a policy whereby anyone celebrating any conceivable religious holiday must be accommodated in accordance with human rights law. This means they need not attend class or otherwise meet requirements, and they must be given the opportunity to make up missed work.
This includes, according to the university's interfaith calender, L. Ron Hubbard's birthday on March 13th. I'm not making this up. So for the Scientologist who would prefer not to write a midterm that day, I'm sure this is a welcome turn of events.
While it seems like such a nice idea in principle to accommodate everyone in the interest of promoting an inclusive society, all I see is open season on instructors to let students pretty much write their own syllabus. I don't think it's a far cry to suggest that this policy is going to be abused terribly.
Even a left-wing, tolerant, hyper-liberal person such as myself finds this policy to be, among other things, absurd. By the same token, I guess I can make excuses too, penalty-free. So maybe I'll get all Pagan on the administration's ass and cancel classes on the equinoxes and the solstices.
