Why isn’t it? How about cartoon depictions of Mohammed?
It’s not so easy to draw the line in terms of religious views that we think should be accommodated, and those we think are unreasonable. Surely nobody would think that Duke, or any other college, should ask Jewish students to eat pork, or to require Muslim students to draw a picture of Mohammed, etc. To what extent should a college ask religious students of any faith to view material that they believe it is a sin to view? Surely nobody thinks anything goes in this regard? Now, I personally think Fun Home is probably a reasonable request for adult students who expect to attend Duke–it’s hardly the same as asking them to watch “Deep Throat.” But I’m not so sure I know where the line is.
I see a difference in religious practices which can be more easily accommodated by the university, and those that require the university to change their basic curriculum. One of my friends taught at a small satellite campus of the state university and had a student object to slide shows including nude sculpture. It was against her religion to look at these images and she wanted him to either remove them or use electronic fig leaves. When he refused, she brought her parents and minister to meet with university administrators. The administration decided the class content would remain unchanged. When the university accommodates this sort of view, it may eventually only serve a minority.
PG: loved your post about art
ETA: we see this struggle with the “studies” classes to which many here object. Sure, most of western culture is white, heteronormative patriarchal and inherently offensive to many. But it has been mainstream culture and maybe it’s not a good idea to just ignore it entirely. Don’t we have to at least understand history to change it? Maybe not.
It’s fascinating how online debate leads eventually to people staking out unreasonable positions.
For my part, I find such “summer reading” assignments to be useless at best. At worst, they are a distraction from the college’s academic mission. They are a sop to those who feel that it is possible to create a shared experience for all students, and that such assignments will “open minds.” Well, if you want to do that, don’t choose something you know many of the participants will object to.
If a college decides to admit people of faith, it has a duty to respect their beliefs–which, in my book, would include not recommending all students read a book with line drawings of sexual acts. No matter how worthy some may believe the book to be.
This is not an academic assignment. It is a Not-Welcome mat.
I think this whole episode is a wonderful teaching opportunity. I haven’t read the book in question, but from the description it seems like a perfectly reasonable choice for a suggested summer reading assignment. I would love it if Duke’s president would use this controversy as a chance to educate the entire campus community on the values of free expression, tolerance of diverse viewpoints, and open debate that are especially integral to a university. Nothing would please me more than for students and faculty to see that academic freedom absolutely has to be one of a university’s primary values, even at the risk of giving offense.
But I must confess I also have an ulterior motive. The fact that in this case the objection is coming from a Christian viewpoint should make it easier for the campus to understand and accept this lesson. However, at least in my opinion, in the year 2015 the greatest danger to open debate doesn’t come from religious Christians. It comes from those who would consider themselves anything but traditional Christians and would subvert the university’s core values to further their own ideological agendas. As far as I can tell, there are a vocal minority of students who take Ring Lardner’s wonderful line
as their template for academic discourse.
Universities - most definitely including Duke - are increasingly caving in to their demands. Frankly, in my experience there is far more tolerance for diverse ideological and political viewpoints in the most conservative corporate boardrooms than in most universities nowadays. As a former academic, I am disgusted.
I am about 1/3 the way through the book. It’s a quick read. And for the record, there has as of yet been exactly zero drawings of a sexual nature whatsoever thus far, and only a few tangential references to sexuality. I flipped through and found one, but it is not “graphic” at all. Yes it shows two women, mostly nude, in bed together. It does not show lips in contact with any body part. Much later there is a slightly more graphic image on one page. That’s it as far as I can see for “sexual imagery”. Ultimately it is a book not about homosexuality per se; it is about our often inauthentic selves, and our sometimes tortured family relationships. I daresay many are complaining about the book without looking at it. Calling this “pornography” is truly over-the-top.
This student has a right not to view slides of nude sculptures. But, as I said above, students with limitations based on rigid belief systems would be better off at colleges and universities that also adhere to those belief systems. Just as you can’t be an art history major if your religion forbids you to view nude art, you cannot be on a college football team if you are an observant Jew (college football is played on Saturdays). A female, observant Muslim cannot be a competitive gymnast or swimmer. A devout, conservative Christian cannot major in biology because, well, evolution.
Ha! You missed the point. I’m not holding up corporate boardrooms for praise; however, they do look like bastions of open-mindedness in comparison with the ideological climate at many universities.
The student was not required to view any slides. It would not have impacted the student’s grade. The class was not a required class.
eta: It seems to me, carried to its logical conclusion, accommodating students in this way eliminates the traditional teaching of art history. I think that may be a bad thing.
“If a college decides to admit people of faith, it has a duty to respect their beliefs”
GOOD GRIEF!
Duke does not ASK or make ADMISSION decisions based on what the religious beliefs of its applicants are! THEY DONT CARE.
IT is an ACADEMIC INSTITUTION, for Gods sake!!!.
Those who are so fearful or sensitive about being exposed to any books, ideas, works of art, etc that do not follow THEIR religious beliefs are free NOT to apply to Duke and any academic institution that is not run by their church!
unbelievable!!!
I’m glad donnaleighg has a copy of the book in front of her. Mine is at home, several hundred miles from where I am. As I said last night, what one remembers about this book has absolutely nothing to do with graphic sexual imagery. Objecting to this book on the basis of graphic sexual imagery is a pretext for something, and that something is overwhelmingly likely to be homophobia of one kind or another.
I believe in respecting people’s religious beliefs. I would not require a devout Muslim/Jew/Christian to violate his or her religious principles by studying nude bodies. But I would leave it to them to decide (perhaps with advice) when to look away – I would not cleanse the curriculum of anything I thought important to study that might offend someone’s bona fide religious principles.
I grew up very conscious of being a religious minority – a Jew in a very WASP-y world. At my (nonpublic, but not religious) schools, we had New Testament readings and hymns every day, and many of the hymns were directly contrary to my beliefs. Sometimes I didn’t sing at all; sometimes I sang only the parts that were not objectionable and was silent for the bad lines; and sometimes I thought “What the heck!” and sang 'em all. I learned a lot from the experience, much more than if everyone had been doing backflips to avoid presenting me with any sort of dilemma.
At some point in the continuum of religious observance, it’s appropriate for a student to say “I really don’t belong in a secular institution. I am not interested in 90% of what they are teaching, or the way in which they are teaching the 10% that does interest me.” That’s not a tragedy; that’s a choice, and a perfectly valid one. It’s a valid choice for the institution to make, too – some perfectly well-qualified students may nonetheless not belong.
I’m curious why folks who refused to read or look through it even chose a liberal arts school? Doesn’t seem a good fit. It seems more like they wanted the presige, but on their own terms.
Now if you read it, and found it clashing with your belief system, that is the whole point of social discourse. Go back to campus and ha e that debate. I’m sure it would be fine. But to say, nope, not reading it, it akin to a religious temper tantrum. You are showing yourself to be a “my way or the highway” kind of person that Duke may regret admitting to begin with bc you refuse to live up to their vales and mission. It IS their school. They don’t have to change for anyone.
Just as you see few athiests or homosexuals at an evangelical college, I think you would see few evangelicals at a liberal college…“fit” and self selection.,.
You’d be surprised what people who are really prudish remember. My mother objected to Chariots of Fire because of the nudity.
I think it’s probably the case that anybody who would object to the drawn nudity in Fun Home is likely to also object to the theme of the book. But I do think they are separate issues.
Let me just add that I think it is possible to know to a fair degree of certainty that something is offensive to your beliefs or standards without actually seeing it. An X rating is probably enough for many people, for example. For myself, an example might be Monty Python’s Life of Brian. I don’t need to see it to know I don’t want to see it. (I probably wouldn’t refuse to see it in the Duke situation, though.)
I do not, by the way, think it is a violation of personal belief to ask someone who believes that God has condemned homosexuality – a mainstream position for observant Christians, Muslims, and Jews – to read something written about sexuality other than from a religious perspective, and presenting some of what may seem costly and unfair about the religious position. If your religion is strong, you have to deal with that. If you are not dealing with that, you are not really committing to your faith. It’s super-easy to be religious when everything is about receiving blessings and feeling joy, but faith matters when the choices faith imposes are difficult ones. It’s neither intellectually nor religiously valid to pull back from that.
Colleges have the right (or duty) to present information that might undermine and change the beliefs of the student who previously thought he knew the truth with absolute certainty…
@menloparkmom: I think you’re arguing something that’s not really an argument, as I see it. Duke didn’t force the kid to read the book. It was optional and he made public his rationale for not reading it. As a Christian I don’t object to Duke’s inclusion of the book – but would similarly support a religiously devout person’s decision to not read the book. I’m not scared of the book or its contents and while I bemoan the existence of overly graphic media in other forms, I understand its existance and am not charging at windmills on some Tipper Gore campaign. I choose not to read them does not mean I’m fearful of it or overly sensitive to it. I find them objectionable FOR ME. Again, please don’t paint us in such a broad brush as if our stances somehow exhibit some weakness.
I do agree fully with you about this however: Others have noted, I think it’d be foolish to censor the material in a Film Studies class. It’d be equally as foolish to scrub a Music history class of religious music because it offended the diehard atheist.
The other poster’s anecdote about the student + parents demanding the teacher alter nude slides is making an unreasonable request, IMHO.
Maybe the Duke freshman is a homophobe. I don’t know. But this thread seems to have devolved into two camps that are defending points and hurling counter-accusations that I’m not sure are really relevant to what’s actually happening at Duke.
One side says Duke has some sinister secular agenda. Another side is crying foul over zealous censorship. Hunh???
