Human Rights Commission: "Forcing Attendance at University Chapel Violates Religious Freedom... Alternative Courses Must Be Offered"

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] The National Human Rights Commission has ruled that forcing university students to attend 'chapel' classes without alternative courses infringes on their individual religious freedom.

On the 24th, the Human Rights Commission announced that it recommended the president of University A in the Gwangju area to prepare measures that do not infringe on students' individual religious freedom, such as providing alternative courses for chapel classes.

The complainant, a student at University A, filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, stating that the school’s mandatory chapel classes as a required course for all students, and the rule that students cannot graduate without completing the class, infringes on their individual religious freedom.

According to the Human Rights Commission’s investigation, University A is a church-affiliated university established based on Christian principles, aiming to train professionals such as healthcare workers. It does not have departments directly related to the Christian faith nor restricts freshman admission to Christians.

Nevertheless, to propagate its founding Christian spirit, the university designated chapel as a required liberal arts course, requiring all first-year students to take it, and stipulated that students who do not complete chapel cannot graduate. The Human Rights Commission confirmed that no alternative courses were offered.

In response, University A claimed, "The chapel class was created with the purpose of fostering Christian literacy and the intellect demanded by society through a proper understanding of Christianity for non-believing students, and it does not have coercive religious propagation." However, the Human Rights Commission judged that the chapel content, consisting of sermons, prayers, hymns, and Bible readings, was essentially no different from worship services of a specific Christian church and constituted sectarian education aimed at propagating Christianity.

While recognizing that private church-affiliated universities have broad rights to realize their religious founding ideals through the curriculum under the principles of freedom of religious activities and university autonomy, the Human Rights Commission found that by effectively forcing sectarian education without obtaining individual consent from students, the university infringed on students' religious freedom (the passive freedom not to believe in a specific religion).

The Human Rights Commission explained, "As long as church-affiliated universities take the form of educational institutions, they cannot avoid regulation under educational laws and must seek ways that do not fundamentally infringe on students' religious freedom."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.