Susan Henking highlights a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Muslim Women May Defy Fathers’ Wishes and Go to University, Legal Authority Rules,” and responds with a discussion of the religious questions that can surround higher education:
All in all, the struggle to ensure both the right to education and freedom of religion (and/or freedom from religion) raises as many questions as it offers answers. Do the children, daughters and sons, in these circumstances have a right to knowledge regarding secular education? Is there a right to education; or a right to secular education? What counts as education? These questions are certainly complex when virtually all the liberal arts colleges ranked in the top 50 by U.S. News and World Report are (for complex historical and financial reasons) originally Protestant; when the most highly-branded American institutions identified by University Business include religious schools like Calvin College and the University of Notre Dame; when barring girls’ rights to education remains a global dilemma; and when, in the United States, some still (or again) discriminate in favor of men in college and university applicant pools.
Read the full post here.