Community College Religious Accommodation Policies: A Critical Analysis in a State Context

In 2010, the North Carolina General Assembly amended state laws that required all community colleges to adopt a religious observance policy that would provide students with a minimum of two excused absences for religious activities “required by the faith of the student.” Drawing on Felix and Nienhusser’s Equity-Centered Policy Implementation Framework, this qualitative, critical policy analysis examined the language used in publicly available religious accommodation policies and procedures adopted by various North Carolina community colleges to gain a deeper understanding of how these policies are foregrounded and constructed, and to what extent the organizational behaviors directed in the policies may or may not foster religious pluralism. Findings revealed how the colleges framed these policies in legal and non-discrimination compliance language and logic, while obscuring the distinction between excused absences specifically and religious accommodations broadly. Discussions of key findings focus on the role of individual institutions responding to state legislative mandates, along with recommendations for future research and institutional practice.