Iowa State University was put in a difficult position after a complaint was recently filed by a Memorial Union hotel guest who was displeased to find the Bible in his hotel room. The guest proceeded to file a complaint with the Freedom from Religion Foundation, saying the Memorial Union’s hotel is a government owned hotel, as it is part of the university. The university was thus placed in a position that would certainly leave members of the public upset on one side of the issue or the other.

The Memorial Union has since made the decision to remove the Bibles from their rooms and place them in the Browsing Library located within the Memorial Union by March 1.

However, as John McCarroll, executive director for the office of university relations, explained in an article that published on Tuesday, anyone staying at the hotel will still have the ability to have a Bible in their room.

“The Bibles will be moved to the Browsing Library, which is located downstairs in the same building. When a guest checks into the hotel they will be given the opportunity to request that any publication in the browsing library, the Bible and many other religious texts included, be delivered to their room,” McCarroll said.

A similar situation, also involving the Freedom From Religion Foundation, took place at the University of Wisconsin when a guest complained of finding Bibles in lodges owned by the university. The University of Wisconsin soon removed the Bibles from the rooms and placed them behind their registration counter and made available upon request.

There is not a better answer that anyone could hope for in either situation. Those wishing to have a Bible, may, just as those looking for any other text, make the request to have it delivered to their rooms. Everybody wins, period. And in Iowa State’s case, it actually makes more copies of the Bible, along with other religious texts, easily available to anyone in the publicly accessible Browsing Library. Why would it be better to leave a Bible untouched in a nightstand drawer when more copies can be available to everyone, every day? 

This was not the university “giving in” to a silly complaint. It was the university responding with a solid solution that solved a problem in a timely manner. Honestly, the public could not have asked for a more fair and equal solution to the complaint.

Some individuals may be angry that the Bibles were ever solely offered in the rooms to begin with, while others may feel that the individual who complained should have simply ignored the religious text in his nightstand drawer, but the situation did happen and the only available option is to move forward in the most appropriate manner possible. Our university has done this with flying colors.

The complaint could easily have gone on longer, and been a much uglier fight if the university chose to react in another manner. 

The idea that any party surrounding this complaint lost the argument is preposterous. No religion is being placed above another when it comes to what is being offered as reading material in the hotel rooms, yet at the same time, all are given the equal opportunity to have their rooms tailored to their personal preferences.

The Memorial Union and the university deserve recognition for handling a complaint that involved strong, and often volatile, feelings on both sides with tact.