Must schools and workplaces provide prayer rooms in their facilities? Should employees who adhere to minority religions get paid leave for missing work on their holidays?
“And then you have thornier issues: do women have a right to not remove their religious headgear when posing for official photographs?” Jane Moss, director of the Council of North American Studies, said. “Should a Sikh child be allowed to bring a ceremonial dagger to school?”
Moss expects a Nov. 20 colloquium, “Reasonable Accommodations and Minority Religious Freedom in the U.S. and Canada,” to address these issues. The colloquium is part of a year-long series called “Reasonable Accommodations? Minorities in Globalized Nation States.” The free, public event will be in room 240 of the John Hope Franklin Center. Registration in advance is required.
Moss added that it is critical for “Western, liberal societies” to be tolerant of all belief systems while defending the basic freedoms of all citizens.
“As the U.S and Canada have become more diverse, there are more discussions of what the majority would have to accept to reasonably accommodate the religious practices of minorities,” Moss said. “For example, Canada allowed many family conflicts to be resolved in religious courts. But after more and more conservative Muslims began demanding Sharia law in their family courts, the government had to step in to ensure women were being treated equally, which is part of the Canadian constitution.”
The colloquium will include a historical overview of religious freedoms in the US and Canada and a panel on legal interpretations of religious freedom in both countries. In another session, McGill University philosopher Charles Taylor will examine the political challenges associated with accommodating religious practices. The final session will feature a discussion of the foreign policy implications of religious tolerance by Andrew Bennett, the Canadian ambassador for religious freedom, and Katrina Lantos Swett, the chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Moss said Duke itself presents an interesting case of changing definitions of religious freedom and tolerance, mirroring the changes in North America throughout the 20th century.
“In the last 30 or 40 years, there has been a huge increase in diversity among Duke students,” Moss said. “There was a time when Duke’s Christian identity was much more obvious, and you were uncomfortable to go here if you weren’t Christian. Today, we have more international students at Duke than we have ever had before, meaning we also have more religious minorities represented on campus."
Moss noted that questions of religious tolerance are now a permanent fixture of American and Canadian societies.
“Even in societies as liberal and democratic as the U.S. and Canada, it is very difficult to accommodate different minorities while being mindful of the rights of all citizens,” Moss said. “These issues are not going away any time soon, and all groups must learn to be tolerant of one another.”
The colloquium is directed by the Duke Council for European Studies in collaboration with the Council for North American Studies, the Duke Islamic Studies Center, the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and the Center for Jewish Studies at Duke University, and funded by the Mellon Foundation and the Provost’s Office at Duke University, with additional support from the Canadian Studies Endowment and the Duke Women’s Center. More information is available here.