https://provost.umich.edu/resources-policies/calendars/?trk=feed_main-feed-card_feed-article-content

Reasonable accommodations that may be explored and implemented include, but are not limited to:

rescheduling exams, presentations, or due dates (fair; I do this as well if students bring a conflict to my attention before the date in question)

excused absences with no academic penalty (fair; I do this as well if students bring a conflict to my attention before the date in question)

alternative assignments or flexible participation options (I need more information than a vague statement acting as policy)

modified exam times during fasting or holy periods (fair; I do this as well if students bring a conflict to my attention before the date in question)

Reasonable accommodations do not require instructors to compromise essential academic standards, but instructors are expected to make reasonable efforts to support students' religious commitments. (This seems very vague as well.)

The accommodations for due dates and tests I've been doing for at least eight years. Those I have no issue with. The vague one gives me pause.

As an English teacher, I assign a wide variety of readings. I recognize some of those readings can cause a student, let's call it anxiety. I do have a backup reading for some of the ones students have questioned in the past. Sometimes the same skill can be taught with a different story, but it opens a slippery slope that can get problematic in a hurry.

Even Plato is being tagged as crossing a line.

It is called DEI/wokeness

Harrison Bergeron said:

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The university is more than 100 years old. Why is this change needed now?

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When you let in DEI applicants, you have to bed over backwards to give them a chance to get that degree.

Harrison Bergeron said:

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The university is more than 100 years old. Why is this change needed now?

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One other reason a policy is needed is because professor's have academic freedom and sometimes it may get abused. In the past, there was no recourse for the student. Now there is.

Good Friday always falls on a Friday. Typically, my assignments are always due Friday at 11:59pm. I've always recognized this weekend as a holiday weekend and postponed the due date of things that would normally be due this date. I don't have to do this. An atheist professor doesn't have have to either. Now, they do provided the student makes them aware of a religious conflict two weeks prior to the conflict.

I don't always consult religious calendars when making my due dates. I would guess the overwhelming majority of professors do not do this either. This can become an issue for students who follow a religion I may be aware of but not know much about. Now, I have to honor that's students religious calendar as well.

This is not DEI, woke, or anything of the sort. It's common courtesy. Yes, I have the freedom to make things due whenever I want withing the course calendar, but now I must be flexible with those due dates if there is a religious conflict. I fail to see the harm in this.

What I am concerned about is the vague policy when it comes to changing assignments. In my 1301 class, I always assign students a novel to read each semester. Their final paper is over the novel (a literary analysis). I choose the novel. 20 years ago I chose Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for a summer class. After the first class, a girl approached me and said she was not allowed to read anything about wizards or magic in her home because they went against biblical teachings. She asked for another option. I told her she had three options. Read the book because her last essay depended on it, take her chances that she could still manage a passing grade in the course without doing one of the assignments (there are only five), or drop the course. This was her call. It was my right to limit her choices in light of my college's academic freedom policy. Would this still be permitted under this policy?

This sounds like a policy that was once just common practice. Lots of accommodations are made if plenty of advance notice is given and the request is not something terribly frivolous.