genego

Below are the first two paragraphs from the second article on this situation. As far as I can see, no class was segregated by sex. Throughout the 60 plus responses, people keep insisting that the class was segregated. It wasn't. The female student trained for five months before deciding that the policy made her feel like a second class citizen. Apparently she didn't have an immediate visceral reaction, but took five months to become offended. She decided that her right to force the individual to train with her trumped his deeply held religious beliefs. As far as I can ascertain from the news accounting, he distributed a religious pamphlet, once, which was against the rules of the Dojo, and it never happened again.
The woman in question said that she couldn't go to the same dojo as someone who 'thinks that way'. Her decision, her prerogative. Bearing in mind that there are approximately 1.5 Billion people who practice Islam, I wonder if she won't shop at a store operated by someone who is Islamic, leave a college class if some class members are Islamic, refuse to order fast food from someone who is Islamic. With 1.5 Billion members Islam is the second largest religion in the world. She is going to cross paths with them in many different scenarios. Is she going to be allowed to foist her beliefs on others, to insist that they behave in a manner which is against their religion?

From the National Post, January 17, 2014
Article By Tristan Harper

Instructors and students at Halifax's East Coast Yoshinkan Aikido are standing by their school's decision to accommodate a student's request not to touch women on religious grounds, arguing that the policy was not a big deal.
"It didn't really affect how other people trained, female students were still training with all the students they had been training with before, the only difference was they weren't training with this one particular student," said Philip Parsons, an instructor at the school.

"It was never really an issue."