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In a message dated 2/10/2004 1:35:03 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
and a student feels that he can't write one or This tends to suggest that no rule is possible here because this problem can be generalized, at least in principle, to any conceivable activity or issue. A particular student refuses to write a majority and dissenting opinion about abortion because her religion (or secular creed) tells her the topic is too evil. Another student won't write about marriage because his religion (or secular creed) tells him the topic is too evil or too precious to write about on an exam. (That this particular example does not usually arise is a perfectly fortuitous or contingent feature of our circumstances, and tells us nothing conceptually about how to construct a consistent principle of individualized exemptions).
In theory, requests for exemptions may continue until no exams are possible. Of course, in practice, this is unlikely in the extreme. But in theory, any individualized exemption doctrine must deal with all possible reasons (issues) that any (and all) students can raise. The fact that in practice we typically deal with a relatively small range of requests for exemptions does not affect the conceptual problem of figuring out a way of formulating a principle of individualized exemptions that does not lead to the cancellation of the activity from which exemptions were sought in the first place.
Bobby Robert Justin Lipkin Professor of Law Widener University School of Law Delaware |
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