Michael, I’ve long advocated, as you write in response to my recent post, “bringing concrete religious faith back onto campus” (and, for that matter, restoring the study of religion to its rightful place in the curriculum).
However, I submit that the University of Michigan, and our other public institutions, should not any more be financing foot baths for Muslims than confessionals or holy water fonts for Catholics, or temple necessities for Jews, or whatever accoutrement other religions might require. Those wishing to practice their beliefs in public spaces should provide the tools for their own religious rites.
This nation’s public institutions have reached a unique and, for the most part, workable accommodation with religious believers on campuses. Among them campuses provide, as you note, a “generic” space for worship; moreover, in my experience, this room or hall often contains a closet (or the like) where imams, priests, ministers, rabbis and other clerics can for the sake of convenience store what they need for their rituals.
Muslim students may arrange for foot baths on their own and as they see fit. But for our campuses to install them is (pardon the pun) a slippery slope. Again, will they next be prevailed upon to provide tabernacles, Torahs, St. James Bibles, and Buddhas? Why not entirely differently outfitted chambers of veneration for each and every sect? Why not entire quarters for verdant “circles” or similar precincts for the various New Age-ers – and “reflection” facilities for atheists?
And all this, of course, at taxpayers’ expense.
No, Michael, you are missing the forest for the foot bath.