RARE COMMON SENSE IN ACADEMIA – AT 8:29 P.M. ET:  How often do you read a story of mature common sense in the academic world?  The rhetoric is nonsense, but this is history:

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts pharmacy college instituted a ban on clothing that obscures the face, including face veils and burqas, weeks after a Muslim alumnus who is also the son of a professor was charged with plotting terror strikes.

The policy change at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Services, announced in a campus-wide e-mail last month, went into effect Friday.

Well, it's pharmacy and health.  If they taught anthropology, they could never do this.

Michael Ratty, a college spokesman, said the policy was developed in the fall during the school's annual review of its public safety procedures and was unrelated to the arrest of 2008 graduate Tarek Mehanna.

Oh come on.  All right, we'll give them this little fib since they're doing the right thing.

"It is not directed to any group or individual. It applies to all students and faculty," Ratty said.

Okay, we'll include that fib, too. 

Ratty said the school believed everyone entering the small Boston campus should be able to be properly identified. He said the college discussed the policy with Muslim students and officials at the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, and all understood the need for the change.

If it isn't directed at "any group or individual," why check it out with the Muslims and Saudis?

Not all Muslims are sanguine:

Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said he has contacted school officials about providing a religious exemption, and said it's required because the policy makes a medical exemption.

He said the revision was aimed at two female Muslim students who wear face veils due to their religious beliefs. Hooper said a minority of Muslims believe that covering the face is required, but that stopping them from practicing their faith is "un-American."

Hooper said strong security can be maintained at a college without sacrificing religious freedom.

I love it when a front man for Arab countries talks about religious freedom.

The college is right.

January 5, 2010