Harvard has started holding female-only gym hours in order to accommodate religious beliefs that prevent women from exercising in the presence of men. The new program has been implemented for a trial run in which its least popular gym is closed for six hours per week.
The policy, implemented in response to requests by female Muslim students has, predictably, provoked controversy and complaints.
The complaints generally come from two groups: The first thinks the policy is a misguided concession to a hostile minority that betrays western values and places Harvard, and by extension the United States, on the road to Shari'a. The second is mostly composed of male students upset at being banned from their gym.
The complaints voiced by the first group are unfounded and show a fundamental misunderstanding of American values. The complaints from the second group are more understandable. Unfortunately for them, they will have to find a new time to work out in the name of pluralism and tolerance.
Allowing others to obey their religion's directives is not an affront to American democratic principles or their underlying philosophy provided that those directives do not infringe on the rights of others. Not being able to exercise for a few hours per week does not constitute a crime or discrimination against any group.
The policy would be offensive if it afforded Muslim students the ability to infringe on the rights or the religious or secular beliefs of others. However, it effectively does just the opposite: It gives them the right to obey the dictates of their religion in private.
There is nothing inherently provocative, confrontational or contrary to American legal principles in giving a group the ability to exercise its religious mandates - or its abs - in private. Conflating this basic right with the right to incite people to violence or the right to infringe on the rights or beliefs of others is how America will earn itself a reputation for discrimination and intolerance that is completely divergent from its founding principles.
Some have argued that such accommodations will cause Muslims to undermine democratic principles by using democratic means. To these people, we pose the question: What is the solution? Less democracy? Less tolerance and pluralism?
The criticism that the policy is inefficient and needlessly inconveniences a large group of people without actually helping the group it is designed to benefit is a valid complaint and should be looked into. It is true that female-only gym hours are not fair to the male students who, for those few hours a week, are prevented from going to the gym.
However, those students can find other times to exercise or they can go to one of the other gyms on the Harvard campus (there are six). These are the costs of living in a pluralistic society.
Finally we should see Harvard's policy for what it is: a reasonable concession to a religious group. It is not the end of western civilization nor is it a small triumph for religious oppression; it is a group of women exercising the rights afforded them by American society.
