the king abdullah science and technology university (KAUST), the new technical university being established by the saudi government, will have a campus that is exempt from many of the gender segregation laws that prevail in the rest of the country.
it's a strange idea. i mean, the gender segregation is based on religious law. if they really believe that's how things should be, what is the justification for the campus-wide exception? and if they don't believe that's how things should be, why are they still enforcing those rules in the rest of the country?
essentially the saudi authorities are establishing something like an eruv, which i've also always thought was a strange phenomenon for roughly the same reasons.
