No-Exam Policy for Holy Days Raises Ruckus : Religion: New ruling at Cal State Long Beach draws strong praise and strong criticism.

Beginning next fall, professors at Cal State Long Beach will be required to plan their examination schedules around the holy days of various religions.

University officials established the policy recently to comply with a 6-year-old state law that allows students at all of the state’s public college and university campuses to be excused from taking tests on religious holidays.

But the policy has been criticized by professors and others at the university.

“I will absolutely not adhere to it,” said Barry Dank, a sociology professor who recently fired off a three-page memo arguing that excusing religious students violates the constitutional separation of church and state by discriminating against those who are not religious. Dank, who says he hopes that his resistance will result in a legal challenge to the law, sent copies of his memo to educators and legislators throughout the state.

“If we excuse them for religious holidays,” he said, “why not Cinco de Mayo or Israeli Independence Day? We should have a single standard. There’s never been a requirement that we respond to the religiosity of students.”

Robert Hayes, a professor of political science who teaches courses in constitutional law, expressed concern over the law. “The Supreme Court has established a requirement for neutrality with regards to religion. My interpretation is that this (law) requires special privileges on the basis of religion.”

The new policy drew praise from Karen Codman, director of Long Beach Hillel, a Jewish student organization, who said she is involved in a struggle to sensitize professors to the needs of non-Christian students, especially their desire to observe religious holidays without fear of academic repercussions.

But Christina Speaker, president of the associated students, said she views the policy as a burdensome measure with high potential for abuse by students who “suddenly find religion to get out of a test.”

Although the law has been on the books since 1985, Cal State Long Beach administrators say they only became aware of it after a group of Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist students complained that professors were ignoring their holidays in scheduling examinations.

The law’s author, Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), said he introduced the measure to protect the right of students to practice their religious traditions unfettered by insensitive professors.

“I think it’s extremely arrogant to stand firmly on the principle of testing students on their religious holidays,” Hayden said. “We’re trying to serve students by giving them their tests under optimum circumstances when they’re likely to perform well.”

Hayden said he became interested in the issue after being approached by an organization representing Orthodox Jewish students who complained that some professors at the University of California were refusing to excuse them from examinations scheduled on Yom Kippur, the most sacred of Jewish holy days.

Hayden’s bill, voted into law with little opposition, requires professors at California’s 20 state university campuses, nine University of California campuses and dozens of community colleges to allow a student to take exams at a time that “would not violate the student’s religious creed.”

The only exception, according to the law, is when scheduling an exam or makeup test would impose an undue hardship on the university. This has generally been interpreted to mean that students must give professors ample advance notice of religious holidays they intend to observe.

University of California regents then established a policy requiring professors at all nine UC campuses to comply with the law, spokesman Mike Alva said. He added that he can recall only one other dispute over the law: A UC Berkeley sociology professor was criticized by Jewish students two years ago when he refused to cancel an exam scheduled on Yom Kippur. Eventually, a committee of the Academic Senate decided that the professor had adhered to the law by allowing observant students to write a paper in lieu of the test.

No such policy exists for the Cal State system, said Max Benavidez, a spokesman for the chancellor’s office. Benavidez said he can’t recall any previous controversy on this issue in the state university system, probably because professors generally try to accommodate students’ scheduling requests.

Rick Gloady, a spokesman at Cal State Dominguez Hills, said administrators there could not recall whether such concerns about religious holidays had ever been made an issue at the campus.

However, Gloady said administrators take religious holidays into account when making up the school’s academic calendar. In addition, he said, letters are sent to faculty members advising them to be sensitive toward students’ religious needs.

At Cal State Long Beach, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist students complained to a campus administrator, Mohammed Khan, that their holidays were not being recognized. Khan, chairman of the university’s information systems department and co-chairman of the student affairs committee, raised the issue with the student committee. The advisory group eventually persuaded the administration to issue its edict on religious holidays.

Although the university officially recognizes no religious holidays, Khan said, its fall and spring semester breaks coincide with the major Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter. In addition, he said, the administration routinely issues a memo at the beginning of each academic year informing faculty members of major Jewish holidays.

Traditionally, a university spokesman said, compliance has been left to the discretion of individual faculty members.

But to Khan, who is Muslim, that was not enough. “We can’t do that for one or two religions and not any others,” he said. “If you do it for certain religions you have to do it for all of them.”

According to the new policy, a notice will be placed in the annual class schedule beginning next fall informing students of their right to be excused from exams on religious holidays if they notify professors at the beginning of the semester. The policy, which applies to examinations only, makes no effort to define or list religious holidays. It suggests that faculty members either avoid scheduling exams on such holidays, or give observant students an opportunity to take the exams on alternate dates.

Professors who fail to comply, the policy says, will not be allowed to penalize affected students by lowering their grades.

Ironically, some of the administrators responsible for drafting the campus policy say that they are uncomfortable with it.

June Cooper, vice president for student services, said that she believes strongly in the separation of church and state and that Dank has a point in his argument with the state. Keith Polakoff, associate vice president for academic affairs who actually drafted the administration’s memo, said he also agrees with Dank but is bound to follow the law.

“There’s a problem,” Polakoff said. “We have a lot of religions on campus and I couldn’t tell you which have key observances that would cause people not to be in class.”

Indeed, critics say, one of the major difficulties with the law and the new campus policy is its vagueness on the number or type of holidays for which students may be excused.

A Universal Almanac listing of major holidays on the Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Hindu calendars mentions 36 dates. In addition to such well-known holidays as Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish high holy days, it lists Ramadan, the March anniversary of the period during which Muslims believe the Koran was revealed, and Janmastami, the birthday of the Hindu deity Krishna. Buddhists celebrate numerous festivals and religious observances.

In fact, at least one minor holiday or religious observance occurs virtually every day of the year, according to Robert Ellwood, a religion professor at USC.

“It could have been more carefully worded,” he said of the state law, which does not affect private institutions such as USC. “(It should be a day) recognized by the leadership of a religion as one on which it would be highly inappropriate to take an exam.”