April consists of many celebrations and religious holidays, and the month is cherished by many in the Mahoning Valley and across the world. This April was no different than any other with Passover, Ramadan, Easter and many other religious celebrations.
Youngstown State University is a diverse campus and held events last week for these holidays to maintain equality and inclusion for its students, faculty and staff alike.
However, as is almost YSU tradition at this point, someone always has an issue with another individual.
The YSU app was filled with posts and comments over the weekend complaining about how certain holidays receive the school day off, whereas other holidays do not. The conversations of whether certain holidays deserve the day off bore the brunt of a variety of poor jokes.
Posts concerning various attacks on religious beliefs were removed from the app, most likely due to the incessant harassment students unleashed upon each other.
The individual differences of students have always been something to connect students at the university but recently are underappreciated by all. If you do not respect the beliefs and religion of the students you sit next to in class, do you yell at them? Do you tell them they don’t belong at this institution? No, so why has the YSU app become the place to air out your anti-semitism, islamophobia and desire to force people to fit into the same mold as yourself?
Next year, hopefully we all will have learned — or will have attempted to learn — more about each other. Not only to celebrate our own holidays, but to spread love and well-wishes to our friends, colleagues and fellow students of all religions.