I’m a little disappointed that I had originally posted only to indicate that the word “Allah” is a compound of “Al-ilah” (“the deity”) which is the pre-Islamic word for God in Arabic only to end up still posting 7 pages later. Oh well.
Preamble,
No one will force a religious student to attend those forums you described, but a non-religious student won’t easily be able to avoid religious broadcasts.
Editing to add: not that the non-religious will necessarily care; just that they are not the same.
Every student I encounter seems to have a paid of white headphones in their ears while walking to classes at all times…seems relatively avoidable to me.
I guess I just don’t see the issue, myself.
Duke has slightly given in to the pressure applied. But I agree with the compromise to move it to an adjoining Quad and not have the Call come from the Chapel bell tower. Following is a quote from Duke’s site.
"Duke University has reconsidered a previously announced plan to present a traditional Muslim call-to-prayer from the Duke Chapel bell tower, campus officials said Thursday.
The call to prayer, or “adhan,” which announces the start of a weekly jummah prayer service that has been held in the Chapel basement for the past several years, will not come from the bell tower on Friday as announced earlier."
Maybe we could move this to the “one of those little things that caused a college to fall off your list” thread.
Why would this cause you to remove Duke from “your list”? Because they originally agreed to the call to prayer or because they caved?
It seems threats where made…and that is one of the reasons being put out by the University for cancelling the broadcast.
The university was surprised by the push back it received.
Clearly, no one in the administration watches cable news and was up on recent events. By Friday afternoon, video of the call to prayer (with shouts of “Allahu akbar!” and “God is great!”) would have been played every 15 minutes on CNN/FOX/MSNBC, in-between images/video of the Paris terror attacks. Horrible optics…
Here is an example of a recent Atheist case:
“Senior District Judge Ancer Haggerty ruled that prison officials violated (atheist) inmate Jason Holden’s constitutional rights under the First and Fifth Amendments, and moved to recognize secular humanism as a religion for “Establishment Clause purposes.” The case, co-filed by the American Humanist Association, marks a victory for secular groups seeking access to the same legal rights afforded to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims.”
“A lot of evidence exists to support religious views.”
Actually, not the magical bits. The “why does god hate amputees” website gives a lot of detail on this. If there were significant evidence, it would be science and there would not be so many religions, just the real one. The evidence against the magical bits is overwhelming by any objective measure.
I agree that encouraging things like religious vs. non-religious debates on campus should be encouraged. Hearing opposing views should be encouraged. Pressuring Universities to cancel speakers you disagree with should be discouraged. Unfortunately, the trend seems to be to attempt to silence critics of religion as Brandeis did this year. I think it benefits all students to hear critical views whether they agree with them or not. Bring in a homophobe to speak, or let an anti-vaxer debate a immunologist. Let Ayaan Hirsi Ali speak and bring in an Imam too.
“In a conversation about other non-religious free speech rights, then sure.”
There are no special free speech rights for the religious vs. non-religious. There are only free speech rights.
The security threat is a bit disheartening. I can support respectful disagreement (or even vehement disagreement) with a decision that Duke makes; but to resort to threats is awful:
"Omid Safi, director of Duke’s Islamic Studies Center, said Thursday evening that the call to prayer was scaled back because of “a number of credible threats against Muslim students, faculty and staff.”
How low can one go to resort to threatening students?
And I’m sure Franklin Graham’s comments did nothing to help the situation:
“As Christianity is being excluded from the public square and followers of Islam are raping, butchering, and beheading Christians, Jews, and anyone who doesn’t submit to their Sharia Islamic law, Duke is promoting this in the name of religious pluralism."
(sigh)
Duke’s reversal blew up my Facebook newsfeed today…all of the Duke alums I know, including several divinity school students, are VERY irked that Duke went back on its original decision.
A credible safety threat should be taken seriously, but it’s extremely sad if such threats were indeed made.
Most of my classmates are upset with Duke’s decision (both Div School students and undergraduates). That’s a general feeling of regression that has happened. The university committed to Muslim students at Duke and then broke faith. In some sense, the university caved to calls from beyond its campus (because there was certainly very little, if any student pushback from the original call to broadcast on campus).
While security has been cited as a credible concern (which I hope is being fully investigated), the original statement released by Duke didn’t say that. Instead, Schoenfeld said in the press release:
when what he really meant was that it become clear that an effort to unify the campus (which it was going to do) was causing discontent from beyond our campus.
In addition, to speak as an atheist on Duke’s campus, I can say that the active atheists I know were not upset by Duke’s original decision to broadcast the adhan from the Chapel Tower. On a campus saturated by Christianity, where a chapel sits on my campus and convocation for new students occurs with an invocation inside that chapel, any move that recognizes that other religions exist and are valued feels like a step forward. Muslim life is frequently not visible on campus; the Office of Muslim Life is far away from major campus thoroughfares, and they, too, are marginalized on campus.
(Also, if we’re going to speak in hypotheticals: Duke doesn’t have an active Secular Student Association or any version thereof. So I doubt we would be advocating for anything like a broadcast of Richard Dawkin’s semons for three minutes.)
@purpleacorn If only you had posted earlier! Your insight would have prevented a lot of nonsense from taking place. Thank you for the perspective; it’s nice to actually hear from someone who is actually familiar with Duke firsthand. 
@Much2learn. Exactly. From a legal standpoint it is well established that Atheism is entitled to the protection afforded to any religious group. This goes not just to the Constitutional issue but also applies to anti discrimination laws in things like housing and employment. I’m surprised this was even a question.
You give us troublemakers way too much credit. I simply would have pretended the posting didn’t exist and would continue on with my screed.
I propose (in support of our Agnostic friends) that the following prayer be played every Tuesday at 2pm (at a reasonably low volume, we wouldn’t want to wake up any students from their mid-day nap, it’s just after lunch!):
The Agnostic’s Prayer/u
Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness.
Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit.
I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.
[size=2] Note: It’s from Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness…sorry just re-read the book and loved this prayer 
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Seems Duke has gone Full Susan G. Komen. i.e. angered people on both sides of this issue. I guess they didn’t think this through.
As a person who lives within the community, I disturbed by Duke’s reversal. I’m particularly disturbed that there were threats of violence if Duke broadcasted a weekly Muslim call to prayer. The Duke chapel (yes, the center of campus and Duke’s most prominent architectural feature) plays Christian bells daily. Somehow a weekly Muslim call to prayer is offensive? So offensive that there are violent threats?
For the record, I am neither Christian or Muslim and am fond of the beautiful music coming from the chapel daily but welcome alternative broadcasts. Ironically, the call to Muslim prayer, deemed by many offensive due to violent acts around the world in the name of Islam, is met with calls of violence in the name of Christian values? Can donors not see the value of a diversified student body on a Christo-centric campus?
To be fair, I don’t believe it was reported anywhere that the threats came from Christians or were made in the name of Christian values. Nor do we know that the threats were “calls of violence.” I believe we know some of them were calls to stop donating money.
The article linked above says that “A school spokesman and a Duke Muslim leader said that a serious and credible security threat played a role in the decision.”
It is not a surprise that private organizations are more likely to submit quickly to terrorist threats than governments that can direct military forces to fight terrorists.
Yes, I saw that. I was simply saying that “a serious and credible security threat” is not the same as “a call for violence.” It might have been one non-religious person saying they will hack the college’s computers if they have to hear three minutes of praying, for all we know. That is why I said it is not fair to say that it was Christians calling for violence. If it was, then I don’t have a problem with noting it, but provide the source first, is all I’m saying before making accusations against other groups, otherwise you are just as bad for slandering them.