MUN prof's refusal to use device 'broke my heart,' says hearing-impairment advocate

[muriel_volestrangler]

'Religious reasons' grow yet more bizarre.

An advocate for people with hearing disabilities says he was shocked when he learned the same professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) whom he dealt with two decades ago has again refused to wear a sound-transmitting device that allows students with a hearing impairment to listen to lectures.

The latest case involves William Sears, 20, who told CBC News that Ranee Panjabi would not wear an FM transmitter system that he needs to hear what's going on in the History of Espionage course at the St. John's university.
...
Panjabi, who has not responded to several requests for an interview, told CBC News in 1996 that her Hindu beliefs prevented her from wearing an assistive device that a student with a hearing impairment had asked her to use.

Panjabi was reprimanded in 1985 for a similar complaint.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/ranee-panjabi-hearing-impaired-1.3231791

Their story from the previous day (which managed to not report what religion is concerned, amazingly): http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/hearing-memorial-university-1.3230439

Ironic that she teaches the 'History of Espionage', but won't wear a transmitting device. And I'm wondering what on earth religion has to do with this. I expect that if any mainstream Hindu reads this, they wouldn't be able to say either. It's not as if cellphones are not used by most Hindus, which are a microphone close to the mouth that then sends radio waves to a receiver.

[trotsky]

1. "her Hindu beliefs prevented her"

That is just bizarre.

On edit: I wonder if it is a caste thing.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Then she shouldn't be teaching those students...

how to manage that is another question.

[rug]

3. That is truly ironic.

Meanwhile, I can't find anything about how this is a Hind belief.

I did find this, though:

C-DAC develops new hearing aid

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) here has designed a low-cost, but arguably, state-of-the-art hearing aid.

Executive Director, C-DAC, B. Ramani, says the product will cost less than Rs.3,000. Comparable products in the global market are priced at Rs.35,000 and upwards, he says.

As per the Census India Report, about 5.76 per cent of the country’s population is hearing impaired. A majority of them hail from rural areas with little access to modern health-care facilities.

C-DAC will provide training to health workers, doctors, ENT specialists, audiologists, and other voluntary groups to programme the hearing aid in the field using laptops on the basis of the audiogram, a graph that shows the hearing threshold of an individual, of their respective patients.

national/kerala/cdac-develops-new-hearing-aid/article5410337.ece

[AtheistCrusader]

4. I don't buy it.

"Panjabi, who has not responded to several requests for an interview, told CBC News in 1996 that her Hindu beliefs prevented her from wearing an assistive device that a student with a hearing impairment had asked her to use."

Based on the line you highlighted, I don't think her excuse is actually that her beliefs prevented her from wearing the assistive device. Her beliefs are why she's unwilling to acknowledge or fill the student's request. A class or caste issue. It's not the device, it's the 'unmitigated gall' that she was asked by that person.

[rug]

5. In the end, that may be the answer.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Now updated with a useless comment from the university:

Cecilia Reynolds, deputy provost students at Memorial University, told CBC's On The Go that the university had apparently forgotten about the deal made with Panjabi.
...
Reynolds said she couldn't get into specifics about the religious grounds that prompted the accommodation granted to Panjabi.

You're a university! Tell us things! Get into specifics! Because this makes no fucking sense as it is!

Meanwhile:

Nancy McDonald says she tried to take History 2510 with Dr. Panjabi back in 1996. McDonald asked Dr. Panjabi to wear the device, the professor refused.
...
In the letter, Tuinman notes that Panjabi's reason for not physically wearing the device "based not on a universal precept of a particular tradition, but on her personal spirituality and commitments."

Tuinman said "While committed absolutely to ensuring access to courses for (McDonald) and other hearing-impaired students, (MUN) wanted to give full and serious consideration to (the professor's) religious principles."
...
McDonald says she was assured that if such an incident happened again, disciplinary action would be taken against Panjabi.

http://www.vocm.com/newsarticle.asp?mn=2&ID=57378

From the letter:

"She gave the Dean examples of how this same principle, based on her understanding of the harmony between spirit and body, prevented her from wearing devices such as a Walkman radio or tape player.
...
After discussing the matter with the Dean of Arts and other officials of the University, I have concluded that the first consideration in such cases must be the student's right to free and equal access and that Dr. Panjabi erred in her judgement that she could reasonably refuse to wear the device in view of her particular religious principles."

So she has some idiosyncratic belief that you can't have an electronic device on your person, because of "harmony between spirit and body". What electronics have to do with spirit, who knows. I guarantee she's too ignorant to be able to say.

Personally, I'd try to avoid all of her courses. You couldn't trust anything she says.

In 1996, Panjabi told the student paper the Muse that she practices a form of mysticism that springs from Hinduism.

"The microphone would interfere in the harmony I must always feel between my inner self and my outer person," Panjabi told the Muse at the time.

"Nothing must mar the soul's identification with the person."

However, McDonald said that when Panjabi first refused to wear the FM system, it was because she didn't think McDonald could keep up with her class.
...
In 1985, Panjabi refused to wear a microphone to assist hearing-impaired student Jeanie Bavis.

Bavis alleges that Panjabi did not cite religious reasons that time.

&quot Panjabi) said she wasn't going to wear it because she didn't have to and it wasn't in her contract," Bavis told the Muse.

"There was certainly no religious excuse."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/memorial-university-hearing-disability-complaint-1.3233886

Seems Panjabi is disappearing up her own fundament.

[mr blur]

7. ""The microphone would interfere in the harmony..."

"...I must always feel between my inner self and my outer person,"

Can't decide between and

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Outwardly, she appears to be an arsehole who won't lift a finger to help the hearing-impaired

So she seems to be saying that's her true inner self too.