Rabbinical students win state tuition aid in New York

The New York state budget calls for cuts aid to public education by 10 percent but adds $18 million in tuition assistance for students attending some private religious schools. The major potential beneficiaries are men attending Orthodox rabbinical schools as undergraduates.

[The New York Times (subscription may be required) via Inside Higher Ed]

White House wants colleges to promote religious tolerance

The Chronicle of Higher Education [subscription may be required] reports that on March 17, 2011, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships announced  an effort to get college presidents to advocate interfaith understanding on their campuses. The effort will be supported with a website that the White House plans to create.

The White House announcement, a video by President Obama, and additional links in support of the initiative are here.

Air Force Academy Professors sue to block prayer event

Five faculty members at the Air Force Academy and the Military Freedom Foundation have filed suit to block a “National Prayer Luncheon” event to which cadets and faculty have been invited. The professors claim that the event infringes on the separation of church and state; an academy spokesman said that the attendance was strictly voluntary.

[Associated Press via Inside Higher Ed]

Cancellation of noncredit course on Islam remains controversial

Insider Higher Ed’s David Moltz has a report on the continuing controversy over the decision by Oregon’s Lane Community College to cancel a noncredit course on Islam. The course was to be taught by Barry Sommer, head of the local Eugene/Springfield chapter of Act! for America. The website for the national organization opens with this statement from its founder:

I founded ACT! for America because Islamic militants have declared war on America. I know what this means. For years, I witnessed first-hand how brutally jihadists treat non-Muslims.

We are in for the fight of our lives and we must ACT! – before it’s too late.

The reason Lane administrators gave for the cancellation was the recent terrorist attack in Portland and the firebombing of a mosque in Covallis. But on the same day as the cancellation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on the college to replace Sommer as the instructor. Much of the ongoing controversy, and the threatened law suit, revolve around whether the college bowed to outside pressure from CAIR and compromised academic freedom.

May Virginia’s public colleges bar discrimination based on sexual ordination?

Days after Virginia’s attorney general told public colleges and universities that they had no authority to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, the governor issued an executive directive advising all state employees that employment discrimination is barred under state and federal law. The motivation and effect of the attorney general’s letter and the governor’s subsequent executive directive remain in dispute. Does, for example, the executive directive apply to government employees but not to the treatment of students?

The Chronicle of Higher Education has the story here, here, and here; and Insider Higher Ed, here.

College modifies policy banning facial veil, now allows veil for religious reasons

Inside Higher Ed does a fine job (here, here, and here) tracing the controversy surrounding a ban on “any head covering that obscures a student’s face…either on campus or at clinical sites” introduced in December by the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. The security policy initially had an exemption only for “medical reasons.” After a federal civil liberties complaint and extensively publicity, the College added a religious exemption.

The second and third posts offer sufficient background and detail to undergird a useful campus conversation. Recommended reading.

Profile of Notre Dame’s President

The Chronicle of Higher Education offers a sympathetic profile of John I. Jenkins, President of the University of Notre Dame and a priest in the order of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. As might be expected, the article revolves around the decision to invite President Obama to be last year’s commencement speaker and the aftermath of that decision. [Subscription required.]

Washington University establishes John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics

With a $30 million gift, the Danforth foundation has created the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. On 16 December Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced the new center at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.:

“The establishment of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics reflects the legacy of Jack Danforth and his belief in the importance of a civil discourse that treats differences with respect,” Wrighton said in making the announcement Dec. 16 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

“The center will serve as an ideologically neutral place that will foster rigorous, unbiased scholarship and encourage conversations between diverse and even conflicting points of view,” Wrighton said.

“Knowing that religious values and beliefs can either encourage or undermine civility, the center and its educational programs and scholarly research can provide a bridge between religious and political communities and will inform new kinds of academic explorations focusing on the relationships between the two. We think that’s a worthy goal.”

The gift also creates five new endowed professorships. The new center is scheduled to open in January 2010.