We live in a society that is free and equal, endowing us with “inalienable rights,” including free speech and freedom of religion.

Or do we?

This past December, shopping outlets faced a crisis of biblical proportions as Christian fundamentalists fought to boycott stores and eliminate “Happy Holidays” in lieu of “Merry Christmas.”

They failed to understand America is, by law, a religious plurality, and for some Americans the “reason for the season” is commemorated by lighting candles for Kwanzaa or Hanukkah.

Four months later, spring has arrived with its own holidays and its own interreligious social conflict.

The Jewish people have celebrated Passover for more than 2,500 years by avoiding leavened foods throughout the seven days of the festival (when no leavened products may be eaten). An extra day is added for Jews outside of Israel. There has never been an official deviation away from this policy within Judaism.

NIU has a policy, too. A religious accommodation policy. In the Academic Policies and Procedures Manual, Section I, Item 7 “encourages the instructional and administrative staff to make reasonable accommodations to minimize the resulting difficulties for individuals concerned.” This policy was last updated in 1994.

Unfortunately, the policy only applies to class schedules, and despite religious holidays being clearly marked on the NIU Calendar, many professors assign projects, papers and exams for the same days and weeks. Similar problems are faced by Muslims, who this year observed daily dawn-to-dusk fasting of the month of Ramadan while professors distributed midterm exams.

Part of the problem is the misconception of what a non-Christian holiday is. For the majority of students, religious services are held for an hour on Sundays, and many Christians often choose not to attend. So when a Jewish student asks off for Yom Kippur, the common response is one of the three local service times will not conflict with class time. What is not taken into account, however, is services on Yom Kippur are three to five hours each, and many observant Jews attend all of them.

Holidays like Yom Kippur also include abstention from mundane activities and work. This means observant students not only miss class, but abstain from secular study, writing, and projects and focus on religious study, prayer and feasting with family and friends. The Muslim holidays of Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha, although these have no work restriction, are often celebrated by three-day festivities as well, which some professors might consider “excessive.”

The dining halls have policy problems as well, in the form of what students with restrictions can eat. Vegan students know this. Political science senior Kevin Wagner wrote a letter to the Star April 25 summarizing the difficulties vegan and vegetarian students face in finding variety and flavor. Students with food allergies have also been under-served; Douglas only began offering special nut-free cookies in the deli a month ago, most likely in response to the hospitalization of freshman Katrina Basch.

Unfortunately, people who keep kosher and halal do not have any accommodations. I spoke last semester to Jill Kohn who works in the Douglas Test Kitchen. She said student majority is often the only consideration of NIU’s menu plan. Although utilitarianism is practical under a constrained budget, what exactly are these people supposed to eat?

Passover this year brought a new set of difficulties. NIU provided Jewish students in the residence halls with matzos, traditional unleavened bread, for only three days, and only in Neptune, which does not serve lunch to non-Neptune residents. On April 21, some of NIU’s Jewish students ate matzoh at Neptune, served beside their choice of breaded fish, pizza and breaded chicken fingers. This was the special option granted to the NIU Hillel Association by Ralph Chaplin, director of residential dining, who said food is ordered weeks in advance, and the menu cannot be changed on short notice.

No excuse can justify the lack of cultural awareness and response from NIU, which could have a variety of solutions, from planning menu items that anyone can eat to offering a single dining hall that caters to “alternative” diets.

Or NIU could finally take a serious look at the religious accommodation policy and update it to the standards of modern society.