Discussion Outline:
- Summary of article: A student, Sharon Litwinoff, at a university in New Jersey is an observant Jew. Her graduation from college is on the same day as a Jewish holiday, Shavuot. She cannot attend her graduation if she is to observe the holiday. She is trying to have the university change the date to religiously accomodate her.
- Questions:
- What are the Jewish laws that Sharon believes prevent her from attending graduation if she wants to observe Shavuot?
- Why is attending her graduation ceremony important to Sharon?
- What has she done to try to get the university to change its graduation date?
- Why would the university want to change its date? (See below: potential loss of future donors, bad publicity, etc.)
- Why would the university not want to change its date? (Expense, minority number of students impacted by Shavuot v. total number of students graduating, inconvenience, etc.)
- Is there a law to help Sharon? Answer: no, but there is an idea of religious accomodation in our country. What does it sound like this phrase means?
- "Legal" meaning: It means that a university should try to accomodate a student's sincerely held religious belief, as long as it doesn't cause undue hardship on the university. In other words, the university should try to help Sharon, unless it is too hard for the unviersity to do so.
- If you were the university and deciding what to do, especially keeping in mind the "undue hardship" standard (above), what would you do?
- If the date is not changed, what would you do if you were Sharon?
- Map: where is New Jersey? iPad: Picture of student (see link below)
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