Ramadan is coinciding with the end of the university academic year. That means many Muslim students are under pressure to perform on exams, presentations and class projects while fasting from any food or drink for more than 15 hours a day.
Their parents and grandparents remember what it was like for them. Telling the Muslim equivalent of “walking 10 miles to school, barefoot in the snow,” the older generations talk about a time when their professors had never heard of Ramadan. If they had, the idea of adjusting exam schedules or making other accommodations for a handful of students practicing an obscure religion was out of the question.