The AS Board poses on Friday, Sept. 27. Joe Addison // AS Review
By Stella Harvey
Ramadan Accommodations
At their meeting on May 6, the Associated Students Executive Board passed a resolution calling for accommodations for students observing Ramadan with a vote of seven in favor and zero against and abstaining. Ramadan is a religious event in Islam where observers abstain from food and water from sunrise to sunset for one month, according to the resolution. The resolution was first passed by the AS Student Senate, which requests a 12-hour extension on all assignments for students observing Ramadan, during their meeting on May 5.
Selome Zerai, VP for activities, presented the resolution with Student Senators Abdul-Malik Ford for the College of Business and Economics and Rukhsar Sadat for Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies. The senators said they are concerned that the reasonable accommodations that Muslim students observing Ramadan are entitled to by Washington State law are not being followed. Zerai said that the resolution would serve as a reminder to faculty that they are required to accommodate students, and could be a starting point for more institutional change.
Because the resolution was passed by the board and senate, it is an official AS resolution and will be distributed to all faculty and administration at Western.