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[Re: Re: respecting religion - substantive post]

Benjamin R. Bates wrote:
> 
> At 01:14 AM 3/2/97 -0600, Troy Cobourn wrote:
> >trying to keep discrimination down but i wander about such people that only
> >propogate that because nats is on easter sunday this is discrimination this
> >is not true and those who push such beliefs are discriminatory in their own
> >right.
> 
> As I stated in my earlier post, anything that effectually forces one to
> choose between practicing one's religion and doing well in debate would be
> discrimination.  If we force people to choose between celebrating their
> religion, be it Easter or Passover or any other religious event and
> attending Nationals, it would be discriminatory.  It is true that Nationals
> discriminates against Muslims because it falls on a Friday, the traditional
> day of community worship.  It discriminates against Jews (and as I learned
> from Deborah K V Baker) 7th day Adventists and 7th day Baptists because it
> falls on the Saturday sabbath.  It discriminates against Christians because
> it falls on a sunday, and this year, Easter Sunday.  This is why I have
> proposed that the community consider moving Nationals to a Monday through
> Thursday schedule.

Unless the tournament was held 1) in a hotel or 2) during spring recess
for the host school, I find it unlikely that >125 classrooms could be
kept empty for the duration. E.g., University of Rochester is likely
next year's host, and the University has decided to call off classes on
the tournament's Friday. I don't think they'd even consider calling off
classes for 3-4 additional days! Consider also that it may be the case
that one or more of the host schools chose Easter weekend because a day
of classes was ALREADY scheduled to be called off (most private schools
I know of do NOT call off any classes for Easter -- e.g. on Good Friday
-- which also means that those schools would not be MORE discriminatory
by scheduling nats then).

If finals took place during the spring vacation of the host school, then
it seems that the dates would be that much MORE fixed and thus more
likely to be 'discriminatory' against Easter, etc. If schools were
chosen based on when they had spring recess, then I think another, more
vehemently opposed form of discrimination would exist. I've never
experienced a hotel tournament, so I will not comment.

> 
> I proposed this because Nationals is a uniquely important tournment.   It is
> where we pick the national champion.  It is where we choose all-American and
> academic all-american debaters.  It is where we recognize community leaders.
> It is where we hold the national student meeting to try to influence the
> coaching community.  It is quite important, and I do not beleive that anyone
> should feel that they have to cooose between attending nationals for all of
> these reasons and staying home to celebrate their religion properly.
> 

But religion ought not be given MORE consideration than say, work ethic.
Those debaters who cannot academically afford to take off nearly a week
of classes would be outweighed by a similar number of Christians?

There will always be discrimination. Discrimination ought to be
minimized. But the process of qualifying and quantifying the
discrimination is somewhat arbitrary. We should probably keep it that
way. But the alternative (as I see it) is to have a complex plan that
would rotate holidays and other factors discriminated for, fixing the
date for nats a year or so ahead of time, then seeing which schools in
the appropriate region could host during that date...sounds nightmarish.


-- 
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| Randal Pittelli                         |
| Dept of Environmental Medicine          |
| Univ of Rochester Medical Center        |
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