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Human rights commission rules engineering school must
accommodate Muslims
By Liam Churchill
The McGill Daily
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Muslim students at McGill, some of whom seen here
praying in a hallway, are hoping for a multi-faith
space.
Charles Mostoller / The
McGill Daily |
As members of the McGill community await a
ruling on a human rights complaint against the University for
failing to provide designated prayer space, Quebec’s human rights
commission released a ruling yesterday on a similar case at
Montreal’s Ecole de Technologie Superieure (ETS).
The Commission found that the ETS administration’s refusal to assign
rooms for religious purposes was “rigid…[and] incompatible with the
duty of reasonable accommodation.”
In April 2003, the Centre de recherche-action sur les relations
raciales (CRARR) filed a complaint with the Commission des droits de
la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, Quebec’s human rights
commission, on behalf of 113 ETS students. CRARR contested the ETS
administration’s refusal to provide Muslim students with a private
place to pray.
The CRARR complaint alleged that the actions of ETS violated
sections 3, 4, 10, 12, and 43 of Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights
and Freedoms by discriminating on the grounds of religion and ethnic
or national origin, according the Commission’s report.
ETS’s policy states that, as a “lay institution,” it does not assign
rooms for religious practices; however, the Commission ruled that
this policy is incompatible with the school’s duty to “allow
students of the Muslim faith to pray, on a regular basis, in
conditions that respect their right to the safeguard of their
dignity.”
The ruling also includes a provision recognizing that allocating a
room for the practice of a single religion would be an “undue
hardship” and is not the ideal resolution of the dispute. Another
alternative is a multi-faith prayer space.
In addition, the Commission ruled that “the students concerned are
entitled not to have to choose between their religious obligations
and their attendance at a university such as the ETS.”
ETS’s insistence that it had no duty to provide religious students
with space to pray is similar to McGill’s position that, as a
secular institution, it has no legal obligation to provide students
with prayer space.
Last December, the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN)
filed a complaint with the human rights commission on behalf of
Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) at McGill, protesting the
University’s refusal to allocate prayer space for Muslim students
after it evicted the MSA from a temporary prayer space in the
basement of Peterson Hall last May.
Since then, the University has maintained that devout Muslim
students, who are required to pray five times daily, can use empty
classrooms as prayer space. The arrangement is similar to what had
been offered to Muslim students at ETS, where Muslim students
complained to the Commission that they were forced to change rooms
regularly, because rooms not used for classes were often used by
other students to study.
Representatives of both CAIR-CAN and the MSA were confident that
yesterday’s ruling would spur McGill to reopen discussions about
accommodating Muslim students, possibly with a multi-faith prayer
space.
“We want to resolve this [dispute with McGill] before our own case
comes before the Commission,” said MSA President Nafay Choudhury.
“Hopefully, this will be a jumpstart…and a multi-faith prayer space
can come back on the table.”
Sarah Elgazzar, a former member of the MSA and spokesperson for CAIR-CAN,
said that the ruling echoes what the MSA and CAIR-CAN have been
telling McGill all along. She added that it will probably reopen the
possibility of a multi-faith prayer space.
“McGill will have to read it. Their lawyers will have read it. One
thing they could do is reconsider multi-faith prayer or meditation
rooms,” said Elgazzar.
However, in a statement, McGill Provost Anthony Masi said that
although the University was studying the decision and how it could
apply to McGill, McGill continues to believe that it has “no legal
obligation to provide permanently dedicated prayer space to
religious groups.”
University spokesperson Jennifer Robinson said that the Commission’s
decision highlighted ETS’s duty to accommode its religious students.
“The ruling talks about a duty to accommodate…which leaves open the
issue of what constitutes a duty to accommodate,” she said.
In an interview with student journalists last week, Principal
Heather Munroe-Blum said that the University had not developed a
plan in case the Commission ruled that schools have a duty to
accommodate the religious needs of students.
“Our contingency plan is no different than it was two years ago,
which is one that would hope to see Muslim prayer space developed
adjacent to our campuses, but not on our campuses…with the support
of communities,” she said.
Robinson said that she had no idea about how long the University’s
review of the ruling would take.
The Commission ruling gives ETS 60 days to propose an accommodation
to CRARR; it also notes that, although the duty of accommodation is
incumbent on ETS, “the other party must collaborate and has a duty
to facilitate the implementation of the proposal.”
–with files from Josh Ginsberg
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