Fascinating case

[Rick Duncan]

I wonder whether anyone's views would change if the
drama student were an African-American who refused to
perform a role that required him to portray an
offensive racial sterotype--e.g. a "Steppin-Fetchit"
part. I would not be surprised if someone argued this
would amount to racial harrassment due to the hostile
environment created by the selection of the play.
Further, assume that the student were asked to portray
this kind of role on a regular basis (just as the
woman in the real case was required on more than one
occasion to perform scenes with profane dialogue). Any
guesses on how the resulting public controversy would
be resolved?

This is a difficult case because coursework often
requires students to read or write or discuss ideas
and words they find distasteful or untrue. Faculty
should go out of their way to be sensitive and
flexible to the consciences of their students. If
actors need to take the name of the Lord in vain to
become good actors then there is something wrong with
drama and drama departments.

The solution to the problem in the real case is
probably not a legal one, but rather a political one.
Perhaps citizens who are offended by the University's
lack of sensitivity should send the University a
message it will hear--in its budget!

Cheers, Rick Duncan

--- Robert Justin Lipkin <RJLipkin at AOL.COM> wrote:
> In a message dated 8/15/2001 6:48:02 PM Eastern
> Daylight Time,
> bradjac at REGENT.EDU writes:
>
>
> > Why admit someone who, by her own admission, is
> conscientiously prohibited
> > from completing an essential component of the
> educational process (assuming
> > that profanity was really essential to the theater
> program in question)?
> >
> >
>        I'm not sure what context is presupposed and
> what process is required?
> Should we add a section to applications asking
> applicants which courses, or
> what topics within a course, he or she is
> "conscientiously prohibited" from
> engaging in? From my perspective, a greater
> sensitivity to students' needs
> and convictions is also appropriate on a personal or
> one-to-one basis.  But
> are you suggesting that we should attempt to
> institutionalize such a process?
> Where we'll this take us morally if not
> constitutionally? Were my daughter
> to attend Regent University and major in drama
> should the students and
> administration there accommodate her refusal to
> utter some locution or set of
> words in a Christian play--words that are perfectly
> appropriate from a
> Christian perspective? To leap beyond such
> pedestrian examples--should City
> College in New York accommodate a drama student who
> refuses to utter
> "Brooklyn College sucks." (please excuse the
> expression) in a new play
> premiering at the senior university? I think
> institutional sensitivity and
> accommodation is an attractive ideal, but just how
> can we make it operational?
>
> Bobby Lipkin
> Widener University School of Law
> Delaware
>
>


=====
"Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm."
    --President George W. Bush (quoting John Page)

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