Diversity is a popular topic on college and university campuses across the country. As the world becomes smaller, our view should become more global and more inclusive. The lines separating ethnicity, race, and gender are more blurred and, ideally, less divisive. Ironically, much of the reason we, as Americans, face the negative attitudes towards ethnicity, gender and race, is the political and social hold religion has on people. The fact that some higher education institutions wonder if they have a role to play in supporting students’ religion and spirituality is somewhat impractical. The only obligation a public university has is to provide their students with a safe environment to practice their religion. A more important obligation is for a university to provide an atmosphere conducive to the exploration of students’ spirituality.
To embrace diversity, a university’s community should discuss, debate and recognize that a major cause of racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination is religion. Women, ethnic groups, and people questioning gender and/or sexual preference have been killed, maimed, marginalized, and even all but wiped out in the name of religion! Organized religion has not always been a good thing for this brave new world learning and coming to grips with diversity. Religion and religious practice for college students need to be separated from the curriculum and mission of state universities. Like the federal government, a higher education institution cannot “respect the establishment of a religion.”
A privilege, we as US citizens enjoy, is the freedom of religion. However, in a democratic nation where there is a separation of church and state (i.e. the First Amendment), federally and state funded colleges and universities should approach religion as some institutions approach the topic of diversity - an opportunity to bring students, faculty and staff together to address, discuss, explore, interact, and to learn. Important to bear in mind with these discussions is the fact that many people and countries were enslaved and ruined in the name of “religion.” Africans, Indians, and those any other shade other than “white” were looked upon as savages who needed to be “saved.” Within Euro-centric cultures, women were seen as weak, sinful and inferior creatures needing to be kept in their place. Lesbian, gay and transgender individuals are viewed in many religions as against god and nature – a threat to the family unit, even to society. Some religions support proselytizing to members of other faiths as being superior and the only “true way.” Other religions and their leaders, who are “appointed by god,” state that their religion is the only way as other religions are false. Why participate in an organization that marginalizes other religions or people? Is that not what racists, homophobes and sexists do?
America still wrestles with the tension between church and state. Conservative and powerful religious organizations have well-funded lobbyists who push their religious and political agendas. As recently as the 1990’s the debate for prayer in public schools raged and reached fever-pitch. Debate continues amongst religious groups about gays permeating the American way of life and the sanctity of matrimony or the family unit. A dark-skinned man with facial hair or a woman who wears a veil that covers her head or covers her face (sans eyes) is labeled as a Muslim and therefore a terrorist – against the American way, against the religious and pious founding fathers. How convenient, yet, no one seems to recall that Thomas Jefferson was a deist and Benjamin Franklin recognized that a lighthouse was more useful than a church!
Ironically, America’s higher education system was born from a tradition of religion. The first educational institutions in Europe were monasteries and their mission was to educate wealthy young men in Christianity. The curriculum focused on reading (learning the Bible), speaking Latin or Greek - the “original” languages of the bible, and the ability to engage in rhetoric or religious debate. Our first institutions - Harvard, Yale, William and Mary - were theological schools for property-owning colonial white men. These students were groomed for spiritual, social and political leadership of the colonies. Fast forward through the 19th and 20th centuries and one will notice the dilution of religious instruction. Begrudgingly, women, African Americans and American Indians were admitted to colleges. And, by the late 19th century, the curriculum broadened to include the sciences, the romance languages, and the arts. Religion still remained at the forefront and the controlling influence on curriculum. Thank goodness for Darwinism, the Industrial age and the G.I. Bill! Education has certainly evolved from the dark ages of religious indoctrination.
Religion should still remain a matter of individual practice, as well as fodder for academic discussion and debate. A safe environment for religious expression is reasonable. However, more importantly is how a student may grow in their spirituality – a personal and individualized meditative experience to connect what is within us to the world outside ourselves. Therefore, an institution’s approach to religion must differ from its approach to spirituality. Higher education institutions must recognize that religion and spirituality are not synonymous, and must be approached cautiously and with sensitivity for their student body. An atmosphere of secularism is ideal at a public university, while at the same time, providing an academic curriculum on religion and related topics such as ethics, community activities, and workshops that respond to the diversity of religions, spirituality, and community (Laurence, 1999).
Bell Hooks eloquently states in her essay, Spiritual Matters in the Classroom, “Spiritual identity arises in and of itself from identification with experience rather than submission to a particular set of concepts or beliefs.” (Hooks, 2003). Spirituality and diversity can mean almost the same things. Both topics seem, at times to be delicate and difficult to achieve. As much as diversity matters, so does the spirit. Bell Hooks reminds us that the classroom is an important place where spirit matters as much as diversity, “a place of passion and possibility, a place where spirit matters where all that we learn and know leads into greater connection, into greater understanding of life lived in community.” (Hooks, 2003)
Sources:
Hooks, B. (2003). Teaching Community - A Pedagogy of Hope. London: Routledge.
Laurence, P. (1999, November-December). Can Religion and Spirituality Find a Place in Higher Education? About Campus , 1-8.
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