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January 10, 2014

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to you today reluctantly but with increasing concern about reports in themedia of which you are more than likely already aware and which surely hasconcerned many of you. These reports have criticized and even demonized YorkUniversity and myself as your Dean because of a decision I made to support astudents request for accommodation on the grounds of religious belief. I amdismayed that the decision to accommodate has been characterized as an

endorsement of the students belief system, and as a betrayal of Yorks decades longefforts toward gender equity. I want to assure each of you of my unwaveringcommitment to gender equity and of my sincere regret that, given the specificcircumstances of this request for accommodation, I was obliged to conclude that thestudents request had to be accommodated.

Such requests for accommodation are usually treated confidentially. However, as somuch has been written about this case in the media, I feel obliged though withconsiderable reluctance--and still leaving unspecified the student, the professor, thecourse, and the department--to account in some detail the circumstances leading tomy decision.

There were two determining factors underlying my decision. The first was the specificcircumstance of the course in question; the second was the set of obligations placedupon universities by the Ontario Human Rights Code.

The course was listed and coded as being offered exclusively on-line. Thus thestudent registered in the course in the reasonable expectation that he would not beobliged to come to campus or to interact, in person, with other students. When thecourse began, and the student was made aware that there was a group project thatwould involve his live interactions with fellow students, he wrote to the professorasking for accommodation (that is, for an alternative way of making up that portion ofthe grade). The professor had apparently made such an accommodation for at leastone other student, who was taking the course at a great distance, an accommodation

of which the applicant was aware.

This is where the universitys obligations under the Ontario Human Rights Codecome in. My understanding it that, under the Code, institutions must endeavour toaccommodate for reasons of religious belief if three conditions are met: 1) theapplicant must be sincere in his/her convictions; 2) the accommodation musthave no substantial impact on other students experience in the class; 3) theaccommodation must not undermine the academic integrity of the course.

FACULTY OF

LIBERAL ARTS &

PROFESSIONAL

STUDIES

Office of the Dean

S900 ROSS BLDG.

4700 KEELE ST

TORONTO ON

CANADA M3J 1P3

T416 736 5220

F416 736 5750

www.yorku.ca/laps

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Those in my office, and from the Centre for Human Rights, the Office of theUniversity Counsel, and the Office of Faculty Relations who followed up on therequest took the first point as a given. They concluded from the professors havingalready accommodated another student with an alternative assignment that thecompletion of the group work project was not essential to the courses integrity. And

they judged that the students absence from the group work project would have nosubstantial impact on the experience of other students. They concluded also thatbecause the conditions set down by the Code had been met, York had an obligationunder the terms of the Code to accommodate.

This was the substance of the recommendation made to me, a recommendation thatI accepted, and after consultation with the Provost, wrote to the professoraccordingly, requiring that he accommodate the student in precisely the way he hadaccommodated the student taking the course from abroad.

I trust that this detailed account conveys the care, consideration, and concern thatled up to my decision. Had the course been listed as anything other than an

exclusively on-line course, the student would presumably not have enrolled. If theprofessor had not accommodated another student on the grounds of distance, thatis, if the group work had been seen to be essential to the course, the student wouldhave been obliged to take a zero on this element, or to drop the course. Thataccommodation having been made, however, the sole grounds for differenttreatment was the professors disapproval of the students beliefsbut thatdisapproval of belief is precisely the way that discrimination on grounds of creed isdefined.

Which is to say that I wish I had had another choice, but neither I, nor those whoadvised me, believe that I did.

Sincerely,

Martin SingerDean