Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Men to one side, women to the other (or so they tried)

May 15, 2006, 5:30 PM

"Kingdom of Saudi America"

SSL 228


As per usual, the UC Irvine Muslim Student Union tried to segregate men to the speaker's right and women to the speaker's left. At least one brave individual refused to go along, even after private and public requests to move - BRAVO!


The same thing has happened to me at previous MSU events that I've attended which were not religious occasions. I too have refused to segregate even after repeated requests.


During the civil rights movement, my father helped organize a sit-in at a barber shop when the barber refused to cut a black person's hair. He was arrested, convicted, spent time in jail, and then had to fight to have his conviction overturned (which he was successful in doing so).


After he went through all that, I'll be DAMNED if I go along with any form segregation on a public university campus when its not a purely religious event.


Click on the photo to get a choice of sizes:


Men_to_one_side_women_to_the_other_please

1 comment:

Rabbi Yonah said...

Events on University grounds by student groups are subject to the rules of the University. Segregation by sexes cannot be imposed, by MSU, the Hillel, or anyone else. At Long Beach State, a student was kicked out of a talk by Jeff Klaus, in charge of student programs, for sitting on the "women's side." He later had to escort the student back into the women's "side" when he received word from his bosses that he was totally out of line. The MSA leader had a hissy fit.