Monday, September 08, 2008

Controversy on Campus

What are people's thoughts on this current going-on at Yeshiva University?

Even though I have a nephew in third year at Yeshiva University, I'm not very informed about the student body, the faculty and the basic premise of the university. In my little mind, I always thought that every campus division -- Cardozo, Albert Einstein, Wurzweiler, etc. -- maintained an Orthodox student body, but my misconceptions about that have been corrected.

It is a university backed by a lot of private funding, and the donors no doubt wish to maintain some kind of image for the university.

If a teacher is not Orthodox or even Jewish, is that teacher's private life not deemed private? Does the administration have the right to force a professor to resign if the values they hold differ from that of the majority of the students/faculty? Does this particular, transgendered professor, change the way he/she teaches if she wears a dress as opposed to pants?

Yeshiva University is located in New York City, one of the largest metropolitan/cosmopolitan centers in the world. New York City features just about every type of person, and no doubt sometimes life in the city or inner city can be like a circus side show. No doubt the university does not want to mimic this image on their own campuses...

I'm curious to hear any thoughts about this professor and this one, as well.