The Islamic society at a prestigious British university is reportedly coming under fire for segregating men and women at an annual social event.
The Daily Mail reports students at the London School of Economics had to buy their tickets for the society's gala dinner depending on their gender, and once they arrived, found the room divided in half by a 7-foot high curtain.
The school — whose alumni include Mick Jagger, Ed Miliband and 16 Nobel Prize winners — is considered one of the leading universities in Britain, and was recently ranked as the best in the country other than Oxford and Cambridge, the Daily Mail reports.
One student brushed off the segregation with a joke, posting a picture of himself peering round the screen to talk to a female friend with the caption, "Hello from the brothers side'" — a reference to Adele's hit "Hello," the Daily Mail reports.
Nona Buckley-Irvine, the head of LSE's student union, of which the Islamic society is a member, defended the arrangement.
"I went as the head of the students union because I support our faith societies," she tells
The Telegraph.
"There were absolutely no tensions, it was a relaxed evening. Brothers and sisters were co-hosting the event, which was one of the best I've been to. It was a celebration of each other and each other talents."
A spokesman for the university tells The Telegraph the segregation would have been illegal if it was held at the school, but that the event was done off-campus.
But others were furious.
Another condemned the "backwardness."
The Daily Mail reports some students who've spoken out against the segregation charge the Islamic society has "intimidated" Muslims who want to celebrate their faith without the gender divide.
"It's been going on for quite a while," one undergraduate tells the Daily Mail.
"I don't think it's ever been brought to the university's attention. I have a friend who says she's really intimidated because she doesn't believe in gender segregation at all so she stopped going."
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