Colleges strive to create welcoming, inclusive communities for students from every background. But a new effort at George Washington University has scores of critics and supporters abuzz with heated comments that continue to pour in on various blogs and news articles. At the request of the university’s Muslim Students’ Association, George Washington began offering a once-weekly, female-only swim hour in March. But it only recently turned into an online debate over issues of religious and sexual discrimination and — though not always explicitly — racism, spurred by an article in the student newspaper, The GW Hatchet . The Lerner Health and Wellness Center pool closes to men for one of the 20 hours it’s open each week, with a tarp blocking the view through the glass door and a female lifeguard on duty. The university declined to comment for this article beyond a two-sentence statement that said its officials are reviewing the closure while they establish a formal recreational swim policy. ON THE WEB: Islam case still simmers MORE FROM INSIDE HIGHER ED: Muslim college opens doors A few highlights from Internet comments on The Washington Post ‘s and TBD’s recent coverage of the swim hour: “Should a minuscule minority force the overwhelming majority [to] abide by their rules or should it be the other way around?” “Western society should not accommodate to Islam on this point; it is Islam that should change.” And in rebuttal: “Come on, folks. An hour a week — what’s the big deal?” “It’s not an unreasonable request. ‘Women’ is like half the population.” Many comments not quoted here could easily be considered racially offensive. Despite the naysayers, Sisters’ Splash, as it’s called, is not the only special accommodation that a college has made for Muslim students. George Washington already has foot baths for pre-prayer rituals, and a handful of other institutions — including the University of Michigan-Dearborn and George Mason University — have them as well. In 2008, at the request of female Muslim students, Harvard University ran a one-semester pilot program that reserved six hours a week for female students only at one of its lesser-used gyms, though the program was discontinued after that semester. There’s also Gamma Gamma Chi Sorority Inc., an Islamic-based sorority that has five regional chapters, though not all are active. Shelley Mountjoy, a doctoral student at George Mason who briefly attended George Washington as an undergraduate, doesn’t much care what goes on at private colleges. But she takes issue with the foot baths at George Mason and with other religious accommodations at public universities. She is afraid that policies like the female-only swim hour will have a domino effect and spread to other colleges. “I don’t want my tuition dollars paying to accommodate somebody’s religion,” she said. “It’s not the entire campus’s religion. We don’t all have to subscribe to Islamic law.” Because George Washington is a private university, there are no constitutional issues with the swim hour, said Ayesha N. Khan, legal director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Should a similar program start up at a public university, the presence of church-state issues would depend on the many facts of the situation, such as whether access is religion-specific, Khan said. Mountjoy, who serves on the boards of Atheist Alliance International and the national Secular Student Alliance, is also the founder and president of the Secular Student Alliance chapter at George Mason. She said that although some criticism of the swim hour and other services might stem from a bias against Muslim people, she takes issue with any type of religious accommodation. “I actually think that it’s in everybody’s best interest to keep religion out of our public schools,” she said. “I would react the same if this was a Christian-only swimming hour.” Students say the criticism is mostly coming from off-campus. Shaeera Tariq, a sophomore at George Washington and vice president of the Muslim Students’ Association, helped initiate the swim hour. She said nobody really knew about it until the Hatchet article came out — and as it happens, she is a reporter at the paper and she pitched the article to her editor. “It definitely sparked a lot of debate amongst people, but it seems to me there is a definite positive sentiment on campus and people are in favor of it,” she said. “We’re not closing down the mall or something for an hour. We’re just closing down a pool that wasn’t used very often in the first place.” John L. Esposito , an Islamic studies professor and founding director of Georgetown University ‘s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, said many of the negative reactions undoubtedly stem from an “Islamophobia.” “It’s very clear that there’s a good chance many of them have a real problem accepting Muslims or Islam, and we’ve got to deal with that. In a pluralistic society, that form of bigotry and racism — we’ve dealt with it before and we’ve got to deal with it now,” Esposito said, referring to civil rights struggles. “It seems to me this is a perfectly understandable thing that we should be doing. All of these members of the community pay tuition and so faculty and administrators have to always be open to responding to and accommodating the needs of people.” Esposito cited numerous other ways institutions serve different groups: parking for people with disabilities, campus chapels for various religions, and excusing attendance for students celebrating religious holidays other than the traditionally recognized Christmas or Easter. “If there’s a segment of the community that can benefit from an accommodation, you make it when you can,” he said. “The fact is, they have rights and you have to accept it.” Zahin Hasan, president of the Muslim Students’ Association, said the number of women — Muslim and non-Muslim — who attend the swim hour varies. But the point is that the college is serving more students, better. “What I can’t understand is how utilizing an underused service, such as a gym pool, is a bad thing,” Hasan said in an e-mail. “Very few people know about the pool, and even fewer use it. The benefits of Sisters’ Splash far outweigh the few inconveniences it may present.” But, he added, a “great majority” of George Washington students have shown support for the swim hour. According to a 2005 Gallup report, gender inequality is one of American women’s top concerns about “the Muslim or Islamic world.” (Notably, many Muslim women perceive the promiscuity, pornography and public indecency portrayed in Hollywood images as mistreatment of women in the Western world, the report says.) It’s an issue that is mentioned frequently in online comments about the swim hour. One person wrote, “If Muslim women are too modest to wear ordinary swimsuits when they swim, then maybe they should stop swimming and go see a psychiatrist. Teaching sexual repression is wrong; making women feel that they are bad and wicked merely for having female bodies is wrong.” Another wrote, “If because of religious convictions they chose not to exercise that freedom, the rest of society should not validate it by accommodating it.” But the swim hour’s proponents — and there seem to be many — point out that about half of the student population can participate. And accusations of racism are not difficult to come by. “We’ve seen a number of these kinds of programs around the country. I think it goes way beyond Muslim women; I think there are enough women who would be more comfortable swimming in a same-sex environment that it would be of interest to women of all faiths in America,” said Ibrahim Hooper , a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “There is a cottage industry of Muslim-bashers that look for any opportunity to marginalize American Muslims or to demonize Islam, and any denomination of Islam in our society is going to be targeted by these people.” There is more to the issue than religion, though. Erin E. Buzuvis, an associate professor of law at Western New England College and co-founder and contributor to The Title IX Blog, said it’s unclear whether barring men from the pool constitutes a violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law requiring gender equity in educational programs at federally funded schools and colleges. Men can still swim 95% of the time, so they’re not completely excluded. And if the program’s purpose is to accommodate a religious group, rather than women in general, that could work in the university’s favor. “The university might have a plausible defense that while this would technically be a form of gender discrimination, that they’re doing it to accommodate a student’s religion,” Buzuvis said. “If that weren’t an issue, I would say a female-only swim hour would be highly questionable under Title IX.”

Long before he became a Hollywood star, Denzel Washington was a Mount Vernon, N.Y., schoolboy who spent after-school hours and weekends at his local Boys & Girls Club. For 18 years, Washington has been national spokesman for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. On Wednesday, he’s in Washington to help launch a new national program, called Be Great: Graduate, to identify kids who are at risk of dropping out of school and give them the help they need to stay and finish. “Our goal is simple to state but hard to achieve,” Washington said in a statement. “We want to help every Boys & Girls Club member advance to the next grade level every year and graduate from high school on time, prepared with the attitude, knowledge and confidence to succeed and achieve.” DIPLOMAS NOW: To fight ‘dropout factories,’ school program starts young FIRST TO GO TO COLLEGE: Students stay the course When he was a child, he says, “the club staff motivated us to dream big and take our education seriously. Kids today need that … more than ever.” About a third of U.S. students don’t graduate from high school, says a 2010 report by Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center; for Latino and black boys, the rate jumps to nearly 50%. Many of the 4 million children and teens who participate in Boys & Girls Clubs “have the least and need the most to achieve a great future,” says organization president Roxanne Spillett.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — For students entering college this fall, e-mail is too slow, phones have never had cords and the computers they played with as kids are now in museums. The Class of 2014 thinks of Clint Eastwood more as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry urging punks to “go ahead, make my day.” Few incoming freshmen know how to write in cursive or have ever worn a wristwatch. These are among the 75 items on this year’s Beloit College Mindset List. The compilation, released Tuesday, is assembled each year by two officials at this private school of about 1,400 students in Beloit, Wis. LAST YEAR: Cultural ‘Mindset’ of freshmen may foil ‘Boomer arrogance’ The list is meant to remind teachers that cultural references familiar to them might draw blank stares from college freshmen born mostly in 1992. Of course, it can also have the unintended consequence of making people feel old. Remember when Dr. Jack Kevorkian , Dan Quayle or Rodney King were in the news? These kids don’t. Ever worry about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.? During these students’ lives, Russians and Americans have always been living together in outer space. Being aware of the generation gap helps professors craft lesson plans that are more meaningful, said Ron Nief, a former public affairs director at Beloit College and one of the list’s creators. Nief and English professor Tom McBride have assembled the Mindset List for 13 years. They say it’s given them an unusual perspective on cultural shifts. For example, as item No. 13 on the list says, “Parents and teachers feared that Beavis and Butt-head might be the voice of a lost generation.” With far edgier content available today, such as South Park or online videos that push the envelope, there’s something quaint about recalling the hand-wringing that the MTV cartoon prompted, Nief said. “I think we do that with every generation — we look back and say, what were we getting so upset about?” he said. “A, kids outgrow it and B, in retrospect we realize it really wasn’t that bad.” Another Mindset List item reflects a possible shift in Hollywood attitudes. Item No. 12 notes: “Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.” A number of incoming freshmen said they partially agreed with the item, noting they were familiar with Eastwood’s work as an actor even if they hadn’t seen his films. “I know he directed movies but I also know he’s supposed to be sort of bad-ass,” said Aaron Ziontz, 18, from Seattle. Jessica Peck, a 17-year-old from Portland, Ore., disagreed with two items on the list — one that says few students know how to write in cursive, and another that suggests this generation seldom if ever uses snail mail. “Snail mail’s kind of fun. When I have time I like writing letters to friends and family,” she said. “It’s just a bit more personal. And yes, I write in cursive.” Peck did agree with the item pointing out that most teens have never used telephones with cords. “Yes, I’ve used them but only at my grandparents’ house,” she said. That’s the sort of comment that can make a person feel old. McBride jokes that he’s not immune from feeling ancient just because he compiles the items. But the 65-year-old said the lists can also reveal a larger truth about tolerance. The Beavis and Butt-head item suggests that maybe parents shouldn’t overreact every time a controversy arises, he noted. For example, maybe it’s no big deal if college freshmen misspell words when they text, and maybe their attention spans will be just fine even though they grew up in the Internet age, he said. “There’s something about the resilience of human nature that renders these gloom-and-doom prophesies moot after a while,” he said. “I can’t say for sure, but it looks like the track record of these very anxious prophets has not been impressive over the years.” READERS: What was (or do you think would’ve been) on your class’s ‘Mindset List’? Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LOS ANGELES — In an era of yawning budget deficits and teacher layoffs, schools in the Los Angeles area are looking at a nontraditional source for some extra cash — Hollywood. School districts from Lawndale to Glendale are seeking to earn thousands of dollars a day from renting their campuses as locations for movies, TV shows, commercials, and even truck parking. OUTRAGE: Is 2010 the year of the education documentary? DUNCAN: Congress must act on school funding The money is being used to save teachers’ jobs, upgrade school facilities and replenish districts’ dwindling funds. “Schools have historically been reluctant to make themselves available, but now they’re falling over themselves,” said Scott Graham , leasing director for the sprawling 1,000-school Los Angeles Unified School District . Officials at FilmLA, the Los Angeles film promotion nonprofit, say they’ve had a flurry of inquiries from cash-strapped districts in recent months asking how they can market themselves to production companies. The spike of interest from schools is coming at an opportune time. Youth networks such as the Disney Channel and MTV are moving away from reality shows to scripted programs that often feature kids at school, said Trisha Edgar, FilmLA’s property management manager. To serve the increased demand from both schools and producers, FilmLA recently rolled out a new website featuring photos of campuses and a description to make it easier for location managers to find what they’re looking for, whether a football field, classroom or cafeteria. Hollywood has filmed at some of Los Angeles’ architectural standout schools for decades. Viewers have seen the classic red brick-Ivy League look of El Segundo High School in the 1955 drama ” Blackboard Jungle ,” and the TV sitcom that launched Will Smith , ” The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air .” Torrance High School’s graceful Spanish-style arched walkways served as backdrop for TV shows “90210,” ” Buffy the Vampire Slayer ” and “Medium.” In West LA, University High School starred in the romantic comedy “Valentine’s Day,” released earlier this year, and the 2003 Jim Carrey comedy ” Bruce Almighty .” Not all schools allow movie shoots because of the disruption a crew can bring to campus. But with state education cuts resulting in thousands of teacher layoffs and furloughs for the third year in a row, filming is looking more appealing for Los Angeles-area schools. “Any additional revenue is more critical than ever,” said John Vinke, associate superintendent of Lawndale Unified School District, which has had sporadic productions at its nine schools through the years but is hoping to land more regular gigs through FilmLA. School officials who permit movie shoots say it nets them big bucks. They get paid location fees ranging from Los Angeles Unified’s $3,100 per day to Torrance’s $5,500, plus sundries such as cleanup. With more schools signing up for filming and ramped up promotion through FilmLA, Los Angeles Unified has earned the most it’s ever made from filming this school year — $1.5 million from last July through March. FilmLA takes a 16% commission for arranging the deals, the host school keeps three quarters of the remaining amount and the district takes the rest. With movie money paying for everything from pools to playgrounds to some teacher salaries, some schools go to considerable lengths to accommodate filming. El Segundo High Principal Jim Garza removed the school’s palm trees so the campus would look less “Southern California” and fit a wider location demand. At University High in Los Angeles, interiors and exteriors were painted, floor tiles replaced, landscaping overhauled and classes and lockers moved for ” Drillbit Taylor .” The school earned $90,000 for the 2008 comedy starring Owen Wilson . But allowing film crews on campus is not all glitz and glam. University High students and teachers complained in the school newspaper that the “Drillbit Taylor” crew blocked access to classes and took over the parking lot. They also resented security guards stopping them from moving about campus. Similar complaints about the filming of “90210″ several years ago prompted Torrance High to restrict filming to outside school hours. “It was a distraction to students and the learning environment,” said Mitchell Tabaldo, site supervisor, who now gets three or four inquiries a month but few takers after producers hear the restrictions. At El Segundo High, opposition came from outside the school. Neighbors complained to the City Council about trucks occupying streets, noise from generators and crewmembers running through their yards. Over the school district’s protests, the council last year limited filming at any city location to 20 days per year. Principal Garza said the clampdown has virtually stopped the phones ringing at a time when the school year is being shortened because of lack of money to pay teachers. Still, school administrators say they welcome the money and sometimes they can work in perks, too. As part of a $400,000 deal to lease Hollywood High School’s football field for the summer, Disney hired students to work at a ” Toy Story 3 ” mini-amusement park set up there. “In a terribly difficult environment, it’s wonderful,” said Graham, LA Unified’s leasing director. “They’re going to get almost six teachers funded.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LOS ANGELES — When state budget cuts imperiled city schools, a group of parents fought back by enlisting Hollywood stars to spread a message targeting one of their own, Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneggar . The satirical video featuring actors Megan Fox and fiancee Brian Austin Green highlights how funding shortfalls have killed jobs for librarians, nurses, translators, janitors and teachers. While the video was filmed in the affluent hills above Hollywood where Green’s son attends Wonderland Avenue Elementary School, the cuts are more deeply felt at an inner-city school like Markham Middle School. Both schools have been highlighted as the Los Angeles Unified School District has grappled with $1.5 billion in budget cuts and nearly 3,000 teacher layoffs during the past two years. But comparing the two schools shows a remarkably uneven impact, and just how much depends on factors ranging from income and parent involvement to teacher tenure. The state’s education funding crisis, now entering its third school year, only promises to widen the breech between the haves and have-nots in the nation’s second-largest school district. Nestled in leafy, secluded Laurel Canyon, Wonderland is more than just a top school in the city — it’s one of the best in the state. In addition to the video that has been viewed more than one million times, Wonderland second graders were featured on CNN writing to Schwarzenegger to protest budget cuts. Serving gang-plagued Watts and two of the city’s largest housing projects, Markham is one of the city’s lowest performers with test scores 34% below the acceptable mark. The ACLU sued the school system this spring charging that Markham students weren’t learning from substitutes who replaced laid-off teachers. Schwarzenegger himself held up Markham as an example of how the teacher tenure system backfires because layoffs disproportionately strike younger teachers eager to work in the inner-city. The two schools have been long divided by more than freeways. The year before Tim Sullivan became Markham principal two years ago, 142 students were arrested around the 1,500-pupil campus. The assistant principal went to prison for sexually abusing female students. To keep kids safe on their way to school and maintain Markham free of gang graffiti, Sullivan decided to meet regularly with local gang leaders. “This isn’t the place for the weak and fainthearted,” said the 43-year-old principal. A more basic problem was finding teachers. Sullivan didn’t get a single inquiry at district job fairs so he recruited recent graduates keen for the challenge at annual salaries averaging $45,000. When budget cuts rolled around last year, Markham lost half its teaching staff — 35 teachers — because they hadn’t reached tenure. They were replaced by substitutes at a daily salary of $173 — more than a fulltime probationary teacher earns, but without benefits. In some cases, the subs served as little more than babysitters. Several gave all students a C grade because they didn’t have enough schoolwork to grade adequately, according to the ACLU lawsuit. Another 34 teachers, including 10 long-term subs, got pink slips this year, spurring the ACLU’s successful injunction to halt the layoffs. “A high moral calling can only last so long before you feel like the butt of a joke,” said English teacher Nicholas Melvoin, who was laid off last year but returned as a long-term substitute. The layoffs have stripped the curriculum to basics, without electives. Markham’s plight drew the attention of Schwarzenegger, who used the school as backdrop to announce his support of tenure reform that would allow schools flexibility in layoffs. Across town, Wonderland Principal Don Wilson’s problems are far different. A pile of resumes sits on his desk for a job opening next year. Electives are not subject to district funding whims. The school has full-time art, music and gym teachers, plus teaching assistants for each teacher, paid for by parents through the PTA’s fundraising nonprofit, which raises $350,000 a year. Boosters have paid for elaborate playgrounds, cutting-edge equipment in classrooms, field trips and professional development for teachers. But Wilson must work to keep that revenue flowing. He spent a recent Saturday night in a tent on the playground to help raise $500 per child in a sleepover fundraiser. “You become a developer,” Wilson said. “That’s a huge part of what I do here.” Parents are asked to contribute $700 a year per child and many donate more in cash and other initiatives such as buying mugs embossed with children’s art work. “Parents really value the public school opportunity because they’re not paying the big tuition bill,” said PTA President Terri Levy as she organized an appreciation event to provide breakfast, lunch and a car wash for each teacher. Wilson knows he’s fortunate, although he, too, has lost personnel and is down to having a nurse only one day per week at his 550-pupil school. The principal, who spent much of his career in the sprawling city’s more urban schools, said suburban and inner-city parents want the same for the children. But Wonderland parents possess not only a huge amount of resources, including those to make the slickly produced video opposing cuts, they also have high expectations. That’s the key difference, Wilson said. “They bring expectations as to what an education should be,” he said. “At other schools, parents and teachers come with a limited vision of high expectations.” Markham’s Sullivan doesn’t begrudge more affluent schools in the district. He does wish the system was more equitable. “Just give us an even playing field to show what we can really do,” he said. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.