-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Universities UK (UUK) is an advocacy organization whose members include just about every university in the United Kingdom. UUK provides its members with policy guidelines regarding all aspects of university life. The UUK recently released a report advocating a policy of gender segregation to preserve the freedom of speech of external speakers. The report uses a hypothetical case study of a representative of an “ultra-orthodox religious group” whose freedom of speech is imperiled if his demands for gender segregation in the seating arrangements aren’t met.
The UUK takes the separate-but-equal approach. It sees such segregation as non-discriminatory if neither males nor females are treated less favorably. Reminiscent of racial seating arrangements on buses in the U.S. South, the UUK disapproves any “front to back” segregation. They suggest a “left-right” separation of the sexes. The UUK claims that no discrimination exists since “men and women are being treated equally, as they are both being segregated in the same way”.
However, there is more to arbitrary discrimination than treating the genders unequally. Gender segregation is arbitrary discrimination because it is based on treating individuals solely with regard to their gender. To be human is to be an individual, a distinct person. A person who is not longer treated as an individual is dehumanized.
No mention is made regarding how much distance between adjacent genders constitutes an adequate separation. Those seated in adjacent columns along the dividing line are unsegregated on one side of their bodies. Should there be a vacant column of seats between the genders? Too close a proximity to the opposite gender is a known condition for the transmission of cooties.
The UUK fails to make an argument regarding the loss of freedom of speech if the room is unsegregated. The speaker’s religious beliefs do not give him the right to force others to conform to his views on gender segregation. It would not be tolerated if a speaker’s religious beliefs required him to speak to a racially segregated audience. It should not be tolerated for gender segregation.
The issue of gender segregation came to a boil when physicist and prominent atheist, Professor Lawrence Krauss, refused to take part in a debate at University College London entitled: “Islam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense?” when he learned of the forced gender segregation. Krauss said he wouldn’t speak at a segregated event and walked out. One of the event’s organizers chased Krauss down and promised him that the segregation would be abandoned. Krauss was accused of being “intolerant.”
Jesus and Mo captures the essence of the debate:
H/T: Coel Hellier, Hemant Mehta, Richard Yetter Chappell, John-Paul Ford Rojas.
If any of you bloggers are interested in reducing FONT SIZE you can poke that little round star button in the upper right hand corner, open the Zoom function and then reduce the page to 75%. I guess the blog is making outreach to half blind guys who don’t have dogs who can read to them.
Great job Nal. No matter what label you put on it, this policy is wrong.
I miss Christopher Hitchens 🙁
bfm:
I’m saying that the result, audience self-selection, is the same in both cases (as long as no one else makes any seating demands). As far as the audience is concerned, the two cases are indistinguishable. As far as the speaker is concerned, the results are indistinguishable.
@Nal
Sure, that looks right to me. I think it is neat that seemingly different logical criteria lead to the same result.
@Nal “So, making no demand in the seating is not making a demand in the seating.”
You seem to be edging up on a sort of paradox – the speaker’s demand for individual choice is no demand at all. But I have my doubts.
First of all let me clearly acknowledge: I may be getting past my ability to contribute to the conversation because I am not strong enough in logic. And I know that translating logical constraints to plain language can be tricky stuff.
But I don’t think a commitment to ‘individual gender choice’ is equivalent to ‘no demand in seating’ or ‘not making a demand in the seating’.
It seems that ‘no demand in seating’ is a weak condition or no condition at all, and is consistent with another party imposing requirements on seating, for example, requiring gender separation.
But ‘individual gender choice’ requires that each individual be allowed to choose for his or her self and is a strong condition that is inconsistent with any other party imposing any requirement on an individual.
But please don’t ask me for a truth table to prove my point.
Would the Universities UK group feel the same way if the religious group insisted that blacks and whites needed to be segregated?
Women should not be separated from other humans in order to fulfill some twisted religious notion that men and women cannot be together without men losing all self control. It is time for all humans to stand up to these allegedly “religious” bullies and say NO! If you give in to this demand, soon women won’t be allowed in the hall!
Gene,
Now here’s some UKers who get it right and, like your green self, welcome cooties:
Personally speaking, Blouise, I like me some cooties. 😀
Honest to god such stupidity is enough to drive a sane person crazy..
bfm:
You raise an interesting point. I considered writing about this very situation.
A demand, from a speaker, for individual gender choice in seating would be the same thing as no demand from the speaker in the seating arrangement. When there is no demand in the seating arrangement, it is up to the audience members to decide where to sit. So, making no demand in the seating is not making a demand in the seating.
I followed the link and read the material.
I spend quite a bit of time in the company of academics who are often prone to get passionate about the most ridiculous details (Tony C would shake them all up.) and this particular subject would enthrall them making excellent cocktail or dinner party conversation … especially after a few glasses of wine.
I would be bored because one line out of Nal’s article sums the whole thing up for me … “Too close a proximity to the opposite gender is a known condition for the transmission of cooties.”
They will be building a Mosque over Parliament next year!
And of course while he is at it you must not impinge on his beheading all the infidels present.
What is up with the larger Font on this blog? I don’t like it.
“In a pluralistic environment, such as a non-religious university, the definition of freedom of speech should not be extended to being a right to decide how the audience sits by gender. This is a too broad over-definition of free speech rights. A religious groups should be free to segregate its internal meetings however they wish. When it comes to public meetings, that would draw an audience from the entire student body, then I feel that gender segregation is a mis-use of the sense of free speech.”
There’s the heart of it, Mike. Well said.
This interested me so much that I actually followed Nal’s link to the 44 page report. The relevant sections appeared on pp. 27,8. It was a response to a hypothetical where a religious campus group had invited a speaker to discuss their religion and wanted men and women segregated in accordance with that groups beliefs. The passage directly dealing with the issues Nal has raised is here:
“It should therefore be borne in mind – taking account of the s.43 duty, as well as equality duties and Human Rights Act obligations – that in these circumstances,concerns to accommodate the wishes or beliefs of those opposed to segregation should not result in a religious group being prevented from having a debate in accordance with its belief system. Ultimately, if imposing an unsegregated seating area in addition to the segregated areas contravenes the genuinely-held religious beliefs of the group hosting the event,or those of the speaker, the institution should be mindful to ensure that the freedom of speech of the religious group or speaker is not curtailed unlawfully. Those opposed to segregation are entitled to engage in lawful protest against segregation, and could be encouraged to hold a separate debate of the issues, but their views do not require an institution to stifle a religious society’s segregated debate where the segregation accords with a genuinely-held religious belief.”
Contextually, this entire report is a rather legalistically based presentation of the various free speech issues to be encountered by UK universities and provides overall guidelines to help shape policy decisions, with the caveat that in almost all circumstances legal advice should be sought by the particular institution. Conceptually where it goes wrong to my mind is in this sentence:
‘the institution should be mindful to ensure that the freedom of speech of the religious group or speaker is not curtailed unlawfully.”
In a pluralistic environment, such as a non-religious university, the definition of freedom of speech should not be extended to being a right to decide how the audience sits by gender. This is a too broad over-definition of free speech rights. A religious groups should be free to segregate its internal meetings however they wish. When it comes to public meetings, that would draw an audience from the entire student body, then I feel that gender segregation is a mis-use of the sense of free speech.
Professor Krauss was speaking at a University sponsored event I presume. The title of the debate “Islam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense?” in itself seems strange and limiting in scope since one would think it should have been “Religion vs. Atheism……” and that leads me to opine that perhaps he was being set up by a group promoting Islam. I agree with Krauss’ actions in refusing to debate under conditions that may have been created to not only put him at a disadvantage, but also to my mind are discriminatory.
I’ve written such a long comment because this topic resonates with me personally as a Jew, who grew up in Orthodox Jewish surroundings. I can remember going to a Rosh Hashonnah service in my Grandmother’s Synagogue at the age of six. There was the traditional “Mehitza” which was a fence-like separation between men and woman. My brother and I could not sit with our mother who had to sit on the “women’s side”. To my young mind this made no sense to me, especially, because I could see my mother and other female family members literally only a few feet away. My father offered an explanation, but his heart wasn’t in it because he was a Conservative Jew who really didn’t believe in female segregation either. My disaffection for Orthodox religious beliefs of any sort stemmed from that incident. I embrace my Jewish background and I’m quite proud of it, but fundamentalist orthodoxy of any sort turns me off. I don’t go to any synagogue where my wife, daughters and granddaughters can’t sit with me.
Poor George Orwell must be spinning in his grave. This is where political correctness leads to. It is really astounding that this was EVER even allowed to happen at a university.
I am confused. Wouldn’t the same line of reasoning suggest that a hypothetical representative of an “ultra-committed non-religious group” have his or her freedom of speech imperiled if his demands for individual gender choice in the seating arrangements were not met.
(I don’t think the issue of religious or non-religious is relevant here, since we are talking about commitment to a word view or belief system.)
I find it difficult to fathom that freedom of speech for the individual depends on enforcing standards of social behavior by others.
I am not sure the example gets the concept of discrimination right. But, in any, case lack of discrimination does not imply lack of coercion or lack of violation of fundamental right.
For example, requiring everyone to submit all public speech to a ‘department of approved communication’, while non-discriminatory, is clearly not the same as free speech.
Why don’t those doods just segregate their own gender challeged and leave the rest of them alone?