Campus segregation: ‘religious freedom’ cannot be allowed to trump equality – Telegraph

There has been a fair amount of controversy in the UK over segregated lectures by Islamic or other fundamentalists in universities. This opinion piece in the Telegraph argues, correctly, that such segregation is a step backwards and should not be encouraged or tolerated:

In any society, pluralist or otherwise, we are constantly forced to assign priorities to different values. Religious freedom – the right to worship, to free association, to a diet consistent with one’s faith, and so on – is rightly accorded respect. But that freedom cannot be allowed to distort and trump the ideals of the modern academy, at the heart of which is the notion of a scholarly community divided by civilised argument, not race, faith or gender.

Campus segregation: ‘religious freedom’ cannot be allowed to trump equality – Telegraph.