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By Darin Stone
Arizona Daily Wildcat
September 25, 1996
It would have been possible, and legal, for every UA student, faculty and staff member to have taken the day off Monday in observance of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur.The Arizona Board of Regents' policy on religious holidays permits students, staff and faculty at all three state universities to be absent from class or work in order to observe a religious holiday.
Although the policy's intentions are to protect people from receiving any penalty for observing religious holidays, there are no measures the board or the UA can take in order to see that holiday abuse does not occur.
J. Christopher Maloney, head of the Department of Philosophy, said he has no way of knowing if a student takes the day off from class for a religious holiday but fails to observe the holiday.
"What a student does while he or she is off campus, who knows?" Maloney said. "To my knowledge, I don't know of any abuse."
Abuse of a different nature can also occur when professors fail to accommodate students who are legitimately missing class for a religious holiday.
Michelle Blumenberg, director of the Hillel Foundation, said sometimes professors have innocently planned exams or due dates on Jewish holidays.
"In prior years, we have had exams planned on Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah," Blumenberg said. "Most of the time, (the professors) didn't know of the holiday."
The UA issues a five-year calendar indicating the dates of religious holidays to all professors to prevent such conflicts, she said.
Blumenberg said should a conflict arise between a student's desire to observe a religious holiday and an exam, the student will be advised to speak with the professor and work out the issue.
In rare instances, she said professors have not accommodated students who miss class for religious holidays.
"Sometimes the professor's attitude is 'too bad,'" Blumenberg said. "The student is then forced to make a decision - observe his or her religious beliefs or go to class."
If such a conflict arises, the organization will call the department chair or the dean, she said.
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