Growing up, I was often jealous of Christian students because of the breaks they got for holidays. While every student in school is given around two weeks off for Christmas and some days off for Easter, I often found myself struggling to get excused absences for my own holidays. While in high school, I got the first day of Rosh Hashanah and the day off for Yom Kippur, which all ended once I got to college. And even those two days off were not enough to cover the days that I was obligated to observe my holidays.
Every year since starting high school, I have had to make a choice: do I observe the holy days that I find to be so meaningful, or do I attend class so I don’t miss anything and don’t get points off for absences. Most of the time, I choose my academic success over my religion, even though it negatively affects my spirituality.
This has been an ongoing struggle for me since I came into adolescence. It has felt like a losing battle for so long, but something shifted inside me when Chabad Rabbi Levi Raichik asked me to testify at the Ohio State House last week. Levi explained that I would be testifying in support of House Bill 353, also known as the “Testing Your Faith Act”. This bill would require the state of Ohio’s institutions of higher education “adopt a policy providing students with religious accommodations.”
Ohio University already has a policy like this, which can be found in the Faculty Handbook in Sect. IV.B.3; VIII.C.3. However, even with this policy in place, many students have had difficulties with professors or instructors refusing to give students excused absences for the holidays. Luckily, we at OU are able to invoke the school’s policy if we run into trouble with this, but not every student at an Ohio institution has that privilege.
I, of course, jumped at the opportunity to testify, and the process actually turned out to be much more simple than I thought. A lobbyist named Howie Beigelman from an organization called Ohio Jewish Communities contacted me, sent me a form to fill out with my information, and explained the process of testifying at the state house to me. He sent me off with a lot of hope, and I wrote my testimony so that it could be approved by him and be sent to the representatives I would speak to.
The process of testifying was much less daunting than I thought it would be. I was directed to the room where the committee of Higher Education and Career Readiness was meeting to discuss various bills, including HB 353. I waited patiently for my turn to speak, and included in my testimony that I thought that bill should be amended.
The current bill states that students would get three days excused absences per school for religious reasons. I argued in my testimony that this was far from adequate because in the first semester alone there are five holy days which restrict work, most of which are multi-day occasions. I suggested that the bill be amended to include three excused absences per semester instead. Although this is still not an entirely adequate amount, I hope it will be used as a foundation for which students will be able to observe more holidays to the proper extent, and can become more comfortable asking professors for excused absences.
There is still much work to be done for students of higher education and their efforts to observe religious holidays, but I sincerely do hope that the “Testing Your Faith Act” will be passed. This must be used as a framework for students in Ohio so that they might be able to fully observe their holidays and be academically successful. No student should have to sacrifice their observance for their grades, and vice versa. It was an honor to be a part of what I believe will be the institutional change that is so desperately needed.
Hadass Galili is a junior studying political science pre-law at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnist do not reflect those of The Post. Do you agree? Tell Hadass by tweeting her at @HadassGalili.
