BUZZ
Department of Justice just launched an investigation into Tennessee school
Lincoln Memorial University’s decision to stop allowing student absences on religious holidays recently prompted an investigation by the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
The investigation, announced Friday, involves several Orthodox Jewish students at the private, Tennessee university’s medical school.
“Among other concerns, the investigation will determine whether the university’s DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine is intentionally preventing Jewish students from completing their exams during the Spring semester,” a department news release states.
Rabbi Yossi Wilhelm of Chabad in Knoxville told WBIR 10News the problem centers around a change to the doctoral student handbook for the spring semester.
Sometime since the fall, the university added the following language to the handbook: “Religious holidays and holy days do not qualify for an excused absence from examinations,” according to the report.
This is a problem for Orthodox Jewish students, Wilhelm told 10News:
He said there are currently at least two orthodox Jewish students in the college’s doctoral program at the DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine. While the school is near the Kentucky border in Harrogate, the students live in Knoxville, within walking distance of Chabad.
This allows them to follow orthodox Judaic rules, which prohibit driving and using electronics during the Sabbath and other Holy days. Rabbi Wilhelm says the students attended classes and exams without any problems in the fall, and were able to get religious exemptions as needed. He says the spring semester — that all changed.
“When they got back after the winter break, is when they changed the rules from what was originally in the handbook, and it says clearly that religious holidays will not be exempt. With Passover coming up, and then after that, Shavuot, and it’s almost like you change the contract in the middle. Because the handbook when they signed up said one thing and now it’s something else,” Rabbi Wilhelm said.
Wilhelm also said he spoke with the dean of the medical school about the new policy, and the dean responded by asking, “How are they going to be doctors?”
The rabbi said he explained to the dean that the Torah allows holidays and the Sabbath to be broken in a life and death situation. But exams are “not life and death,” he said, according to the report.
In a statement to the 10News, the university emphasized its commitment to protecting civil rights.
“Lincoln Memorial University firmly upholds the protections established by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. We take seriously our responsibility to ensure equal access and non-discrimination in our educational settings,” the statement read.
The new policy applies to students of all religions, according to 10News. But the Department of Justice mentioned only Jewish students and antisemitism in its news release about the investigation.
“When colleges and universities single Jewish students out for adverse treatment, they are in clear violation of our civil rights laws and of this nation’s promise of equal opportunity for all Americans,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon stated in the news release.
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