By Kiran SidhuSTAFF WRITER
On Oct. 12th, you woke up to the sound of your maddening alarm and the completely abhorrent sight of your calendar, taunting you with the words “Columbus Day” waiting to be crossed off.
It’s Monday, and the only thing bitterer than you is your coffee. You complain to anyone who will listen that it’s a national crime that we don’t have today off, or any other day until Thanksgiving. All your friends are home for Fall Break, and you’re stuck in your 9 a.m. class staring down your professor in silence. You begin to wonder how we will survive these full weeks of school, after being pampered by all our days off in September.
As a private university, Hofstra reserves the right to choose its own holidays. This year Hofstra chose to observe the two major Jewish holidays in September, rather than the national holidays Columbus Day and Veteran’s Day.
Most major Christian holidays are automatically observed. As a non-religiously affiliated university, this has raised more than a few eyebrows from the socially conscious, but has received gleeful acceptance from those who just appreciate another day to sleep in.
But, no matter how you look at it, this isn’t fair at all. Hofstra, though with a predominantly Christian and Jewish student population, disregards its minority religious groups entirely. What about the Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist students, or students in any other minority group, who wish to observe their own religious holidays?
With the increasing awareness of the rights of minority groups in the U.S., many educational institutions have started moving towards secular holiday calendars in order to be fair to its entire student population. Even Hofstra is planning to give us two more days off for Thanksgiving next year, rather than any religious holidays.
This isn’t finalized, but this is definitely a step in the right direction to become more accessible to all its students.
Hofstra is ranked highly in diversity worldwide, above average in ethnic, gender and geographic diversity. Rather than taking a step back by promoting certain religions over others, we should be moving forward to cater to our mixture of students from all walks of life. The administration needs to start taking this into account, rather than what is convenient for the majority.
And if you are already starting to feel the anxiety of nine full weeks of school before Thanksgiving break next year, perhaps we can all rally behind having a fall break of our own.
Another option is to follow the federal calendar like many state schools do, however there are a lot of controversies with that as well. Should we celebrate a man who accidentally “discovered” the Americas, beginning a tradition of ethnic cleansing of native populations? Probably not. We don’t celebrate the days Hitler or Stalin rose to power.
There has been a rise in the number of schools that have decided to celebrate that day in remembrance of indigenous peoples and schools that refuse to observe the day at all.
Instead, we can take a page from Spongebob’s book and start celebrating Leif Erikson, the true first discoverer of the Americas from Europe. And though I probably won’t go celebrate by raiding unsuspecting villagers and buying myself a Viking helmet, I would gladly accept one more day to sleep in and catch up on my homework.
But the real question is, will we keep with the tradition and continue to exclude religious minorities, or will we join the many more universities who have chosen to become secular and attractive to all types of students? Your move, Hofstra.
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