Erika López Prater, an adjunct professor at Hamline, a small, private university in St. Paul, Minn., with about 1,800 undergraduates, said she knew many Muslims have deeply held religious beliefs that prohibit depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. So last semester for a global art history class, she took many precautions before showing a 14th-century painting of Islam’s founder.
First she warned prospective students in the syllabus that images of holy figures, including the Prophet Muhammad and the Buddha, would be shown in the course. Then she asked students to contact her with any concerns, and she said no one did. Then she prepped students in class, telling them that in a few minutes, the painting would be displayed, in case anyone wanted to leave. All this still wasn’t enough, she showed the image and lost her teaching job.
After Dr. López Prater showed the image, a senior in the class complained to the administration. Other Muslim students, not in the course, supported the student, saying the class was an attack on their religion. They demanded that officials take action.
Administrators informed Dr. López Prater that her services next semester were no longer needed. In emails to students and faculty, they agreed that the incident was clearly Islamophobic. Hamline’s president, Fayneese S. Miller, co-signed an email that said respect for the Muslim students “should have superseded academic freedom.” At a town hall, an invited Muslim speaker compared showing the images to teaching that Hitler was good.
Counterattacking, free speech supporters started their own campaign. An Islamic art historian wrote an essay defending Dr. López Prater and started a petition demanding the university’s board investigate the matter. It had more than 2,800 signatures. Free speech groups and publications issued blistering critiques; PEN America called it “one of the most egregious violations of academic freedom in recent memory.” And Muslims themselves debated whether the action was Islamophobic. All to no avail.
In the climate of political correctness that prevails on campuses, battles over academic freedom have become more frequent, but they can be especially bitter at small private colleges like Hamline, which are facing shrinking enrollment and growing financial pressures. To attract applicants, many of these colleges have tried to be more welcoming to students who have been historically shut out of higher education.
As a result, students have become emboldened and professors everywhere often face pushback for their academic decisions from activist students or conservative lawmakers.
Being an adjunct–working for little pay and receiving few of the workplace protections enjoyed by tenured faculty members–Dr. López Prater was even more vulnerable.
Dr. Miller, the school’s president, defended the decision in a statement. “To look upon an image of the Prophet Muhammad, for many Muslims, is against their faith,” Dr. Miller’s statement said, adding, “It was important that our Muslim students, as well as all other students, feel safe, supported and respected both in and out of our classrooms.”
Miller makes no mention of all the precautions López Prater took and all the warnings she gave before she actually showed the image. The students who were going to be offended had every opportunity to avoid it.
Despite all the warnings, in a December interview with the school newspaper, the student who complained to the administration, Aram Wedatalla, claimed to have been blindsided by the image.
“I’m like, ‘This can’t be real,’” said Ms. Wedatalla, who in a public forum described herself as Sudanese. “As a Muslim and a Black person, I don’t feel like I belong, and I don’t think I’ll ever belong in a community where they don’t value me as a member, and they don’t show the same respect that I show them.”
Although initially López Prater received support from the Department Chair, who told her that she had done everything right, college officials subsequently failed to back her as pressure mounted from the protesting students.
Dr. López Prater should not have been surprised that she was not reappointed, as the bottom line in academia today is keeping the students happy and their checkbooks open.
