Va. Tech Separation of Sexes (for Saudi visitors) Irks Faculty

[deadparrot]

RICHMOND, Va. - The creation of gender-segregated classes at Virginia Tech for visiting faculty from Saudi Arabia is drawing complaints from professors, who say a state-supported school shouldn't promote discrimination.

King Abdulaziz University paid Virginia Tech $246,000 to design and operate the faculty development program this summer.

The courses include topics such as Web site development and online instruction, but in keeping with the preferences of the Saudi university, the university created separate classes for the approximately 30 male and 30 female faculty members.

Eloise Coupey, an associate professor of marketing at the Virginia Tech, filed a complaint with the school Tuesday alleging the single-sex classes created a hostile environment for women.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050810/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_saudis

[Sanity Claws]

1. That is outrageous!

How dare the Saudis be allowed to perpetuate their misogyny on an American campus.
The Iraqis under Saddam did not segregate the sexes like this. It is the Saudis who truly hate us for our freedoms.

[rocktivity]

2. If this is what the Saudis want, they should have hired American teachers

who were willing to go there and be subject to their customs. And VA Tech had better not be a public college!

:mad:
rocknation

[KamaAina]

13. Oh, it's a public college, all right.

Absolutely shameful. And all for a mere quarter mill, chump change to VT compared to, say, its big-time football program.

Then again, even the U.S. military has been known to bend over for the Saudis and their medieval attitudes toward gender and religion. During the first Gulf oil war, Jewish soldiers were actually choppered out to a ship in the Persian Gulf, because Saudi Arabia doesn't allow Jewish services to take place on Saudi soil. Perhaps they should have thought of that before they asked us to defend their country, no? :grr:

[theHandpuppet]

3. This makes my blood boil!!!!!!!!!!!

This is OUTRAGEOUS!

[VegasWolf]

4. The University could not find any Americans that can teach

"Web Site Development?" I would understand better if the course had been something like "2,000 kilometer Camel Checkup."

Sounds like the University sold its soul for $246,000.

[EVDebs]

8. Or they only looked for Saudis here on H1B or L1 visas

and pretended to "look" for native born instructors.

[Orangepeel]

10. I believe that Americans are teaching faculty from the Saudi University

I read the story as, "about 30 male and 30 female faculty members from King Whatziz University enrolled in a special program that the University paid Va Tech to create for them"

Not that this makes the segregation right -- it is wrong -- but it was the students who were Saudi, not the Va Tech faculty.

[VegasWolf]

11. Good point. But then what is the purpose of going overseas for an

education if not to explore culture differences????

[lanlady]

5. this is scandalous

My daughter goes to Va Tech, this will not go over well with her and her classmates. Of course they pull this crap in summer when the students aren't around to protest.

Segregation is against US law, what the f*** are they thinking?

[kodi]

6. academic principles fly out the window when money is involved.

as an old prof, i saw it all too often with alumni and their contributions conflicting with ethical standards.

its why i left teaching.

if i was going to be a whore for money i might as well be a high priced whore and work in the private sector. at least there there are no illusions about it.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

7. Saudi Arabia: "Our Partners in Peace"

:eyes:

[Julius Civitatus]

12. Well, they own almost 10% of the American economy...

...and they basically own the Bushes, so I'm not surprised these Saudis think they can impose their Muslim fundamentalist "sharia law" in Americans universities.... Well, the Univ. of Virginia actually flushed down the toilet decades of advances in gender equality to satisfy the wishes of their very wealthy sponsors.

Disgusting.

[DFWdem]

9. This is nothing new

How is this any different from dorms that are segregated by race? It's okay to segregate students in living quarters, but not in the classroom? In my opinion neither practice has any place on a university campus.

[hvn_nbr_2]

14. Va. Tech's way of spreading freedom and democracy

Bring some of that BFEE/Saudi freedom to Virginia.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

24. I bet Tech didn't have a choice in the matter...

...and if you knew more about Tech and the surrounding area, you wouldn't have posted your insulting comments.

Yes...I spent seven great years in Blacksburg and left with two degrees and a lifetime of great memories of the area and the people.

[orleans]

30. why wouldn't they have a choice in the matter?

i'm glad you had such wonderful years there
but why couldn't this school just say "um, no, we don't do that shit here. you must be thinking of your own country and their segregation policies. this is America and we're funded by tax payer dollars. and by the way--we won't be excluding jews from the classes either."

why would that be such a problem for them to do?

[Richard Steele]

39. Last time I looked, the "surrounding area" was called the US of A.

And this sort of medieval bullshit wasn't legal there.

[Sapphocrat]

15. Two words:

FUCK THEM!

So now all it takes is a quarter-million dollars to subvert equal access in this country?

Figures. Fucking figures.

Pardon my Arabic.

[Ian David]

16. How about a compromise. Only MENSTRUATING women are excluded?

[pennylane100]

17. I hope that every member of the student body

demonstrates against this when they return. This is so outrageous.
What we need is some student riots like they had in the seventies.

[struggle4progress]

18. kick

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. Early in my teaching career, I knew the foreign students' advisor

at a college in the Twin Cities. Every once in a while, some male students from Saudi Arabia would come in demanding gender-segregated ESL classes and insisting that they could not study with a woman instructor (The ESL program had only women instructors).

She always took the stance that if she were in their country, she'd have to wear a veil and study only with women, so she insisted that they had to put up with coed classes and women instructors, and if they didn't like it, they could go home and take all the gender-segregated classes they wanted.

If they still insisted and started talking about all the tuition they paid, she would call upon an Egyptian faculty member to explain things to them. She said it was wonderful and satisfying to see this fiftyish Egyptian man laying down the law to those young brats in emphatic Arabic.

[bobbieinok]

22. SIL taught English at college level ... ME students often contested grades

b/c she was a women.......frequently challenged her statements

don't remember how she countered, but she's a strong woman and taught them that in class SHE was the final authority

[tblue37]

35. I have taught college English since 1972.

I have had both male and female Saudi students in my classes, and they have all been very nice and polite. (BTW, I am female, and my male Saudi students have never challenged me or the grades I give them.)

I have never heard any complaints from any of them about our classes not being segregated.

Maybe I just get the ones who like being freed for a while from their country's repressive rules.

[VTMechEngr]

20. What can I say

The president of the university is a republican and the most of the board is the lamest bunch of jackasses the previous republican governors could find.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. As a former academic, I know what that means

:-(

[Media_Lies_Daily]

25. And that's about the size of it. Anybody refusing to follow through....

...on this "request" would have found themselves in a lot of trouble.

My old university deserves far better than this.

[rexcat]

21. This is the United States of America...

not some fucking Arab country that is for all practical purposes a dictatorship run by religious fundamentalists who find discrimination of the female gender ok and are ok with political oppression. Maybe the political oppression doesn't make sense since we have our share here. This is an outrage and the administration at Virginia Tech should all be fired.

If we are in their country go ahead and do as their customs dictates but if in our country they should follow our customs. The Saudis show no respect to us. I am sure this was requested by the Saudis. This is just BULLSHIT!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

26. Guess what? The U. S. has been a dictatorship since December 2000.....

...and the NeoCons are in bed financially with the Saudis.

[rexcat]

37. I agree that democracy in the US was dead 11/2000...

after the US supremes gave Bush* the residency of the white house but the point of the original post was about people from another country coming here and not respecting our customs. That was what my rant was about.

[architect359]

27. WTF

What the hell was V-Tech thinking??? Did they not see the conditions for accepting the money? Why would they even accept the money with these strings attached? Wha..? Dumb asses! If this even some lame brain social experiment, the results are coming back in spades.

[orleans]

28. United States of Saudi Arabia

public school? public funded? tax payer dollars? isn't there a discrimination policy they have to live up to? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON???????

on edit: are we going to start decapitating people in public executions now too???

[tblue37]

29. And yet Saudi students manage to survive coed

classes in our universities. I often have Saudi students--both male and female--in my college classes. If Saudi students can adjust to the way we do things here while working on degrees in American universities, I don't see why Saudi faculty cannot.

[Miss Chybil]

31. When in America, do as the Saudis do.

They own the place anyway. Might as well get used to it. Next, maybe we'll get to have public beheadings at our publicly funded sports stadiums!

:woohoo:

[Barkley]

32. Why Va. Tech? Larry Summers & Harvard seem more appropriate

Va. Tech is a public university?!?!?!

This is simply unbelievable!

The taxpayer of VA. must be furious.

[Barkley]

33. They really do hate our freedoms -eom.

[Barkley]

34. I wonder if the faculty women are paid equally?

[orleans]

36. Dear Va. Tech,

My daughter will be attending college next year and I see you are offering gender segregated classes for visiting Saudi faculty. I think this is a wonderful idea and would very much like it if you would start doing the same for the students attending your school. I realize this is America and my daughter and myself are American citizens but I feel it would be beneficial for her to attend a prominent institution while being subjected to the experiences of second hand citizenry, subjugation and backseat discrimination.
Why beat around the "bush" anymore? I am well aware that the Saudis own a good part of this country and we will eventually be forced to get in step with their way of thinking and lifestyle--why not start right away?
Sincerely,
A Concerned Parent
P.S. What exactly are your policies on discrimination? Perhaps the policy needs to be altered in order to be aligned with the way the school appears to be headed.

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[katamaran]

38. I went to Tech for one dismal year

I went to Tech for one dismal year (wrong school, wrong major, just plain wrong for me). I had a couple Saudis in my classes and was actually pretty well acquainted with two guys in my engineering classes. One dressed American and one Saudi, and both were in the US for the first time. They were always every polite and didn't seem to have any problems taking classes with women. The only time it became an issue was when one of them was assigned to a four person project group with me and would not meet with the rest of us in my room. I think it was more of an issue of not wanting to be on the women's floor of the dorm. The rest of us understood and were accommodating.

I DID have one Saudi professor who wouldn't even LOOK at the female students (about 25% in the class). Even when we were talking one on one with him, he would look over our heads or to the side. Failed that class miserably (screw you Professor H.).