WHO SAYS complaining never changes anything? At Harvard University, a group of Muslim women claimed that working out in front of men offends their sense of modesty. In response, Harvard administrators duly implemented a brand-new policy: For several hours each week, all men are banned from using one of its gyms.
Many Harvard students, both men and women, were understandably upset. Meanwhile, an array of activists and political groups have defended the policies and cried "Islamophobia." The policy is so controversial because it goes to the heart of the problem of toleration. Just how far do we have to go in a globalized, multicultural society in order to respect others?
In the United States, there is a long-standing tradition of respect for individuals. Anglo-American law sets up a moral space in which people are entitled to entirely private actions and beliefs, which includes religion. This private space implicitly makes demands on the public by constraining the scope of their actions. That is, since I cannot act in any way that harms you, what you privately consider harmful affects what I am allowed to do. Where to draw the line between these two competing demands of liberty has changed over the years, but there have always been clear societal limits: It is no longer toleration but capitulation to hold society hostage to extreme, minority views.
The original formulation of this classical liberalism (what we call liberalism today is nothing of the sort) started with John Locke's defense of tolerating different types of Protestantism. Massive immigration to the United States at the turn of the century forced us to expand this tolerance to include Catholics and Jews. More recently, we have had to come to terms with beliefs ranging from Hinduism to atheism to Islam. But at some point the demands of respect for individual beliefs become too onerous.
The simplest test for finding this point is John Stuart Mill's Harms Principle: We are free to "pursue our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it." But when people construe a "harm" to include mere interaction with the opposite sex, then attempts to respect their individual beliefs start to damage societal cohesiveness. Rather than improve society, far-reaching claims of expansive rights by minorities tear at the very threads of the social contract.
While philosophy gives guiding principles, it does not offer practical solutions. So we turn to the courts. Over the past few decades, the U.S. federal courts have unambiguously rejected claims to protection from offensive material. Say offensive words are printed on someone's t-shirt and you feel your moral beliefs have been violated. Well, too bad -- avert your eyes, the Supreme Court declared in Cohen v. California. Does pornography offend your moral sensibilities? That's not a good enough reason to be able to ban it, the Seventh Circuit decided in American Booksellers Association v. Hudnut. These rulings make it clear that although minorities have a right to their views, private moral and religious beliefs cannot constrain others' behavior.
The Muslim students at Harvard simply asked for too much. There's no constitutionally protected right to work out and their claims to cultural respect impose real costs on other Harvard students. Rather than better protect individual rights, their demands hold the majority hostage to the most prudish person's morality. As one scholar put it: "The constitution does not promise respect for blacks, whites, yellows, Catholics, Protestants, or Jews. It guarantees the protection of the rights of individual human beings." When specific groups claim more rights, they actually violate the fundamental principle of equality before the law.
Harvard's policy, while implemented in the name of equal rights, is anything but. Tolerance and respect for others does not require bending over backwards and changing the societal norm of gender equality. Ola Aljawhary, a Muslim student a Harvard, told AP that "the majority should be willing to compromise." No, they shouldn't -- not that far. And Harvard shouldn't either.
Josh Levy's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jlevy@cavalierdaily.com.
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