Hamline U. Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job

[simpleSimon]

A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job.
By Vimal Patel

Erika López Prater, an adjunct professor at Hamline University, 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.

In the syllabus, she warned that images of holy figures, including the Prophet Muhammad and the Buddha, would be shown in the course. She asked students to contact her with any concerns, and she said no one did.

In class, she prepped students, telling them that in a few minutes, the painting would be displayed, in case anyone wanted to leave.

Then Dr. López Prater showed the image — and lost her teaching gig.

Officials at Hamline, a small, private university in St. Paul, Minn., with about 1,800 undergraduates, had tried to douse what they feared would become a runaway fire. Instead they ended up with what they had tried to avoid: a national controversy, which pitted advocates of academic liberty and free speech against Muslims who believe that showing the image of Prophet Muhammad is always sacrilegious.

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.

Officials told Dr. López Prater that her services next semester were no longer needed. In emails to students and faculty, they said 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 Hamline's president, Fayneese S. Miller, co-signed an email that said respect for the Muslim students "should have superseded academic freedom."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.

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.

Arguments over academic freedom have been fought on campuses for years, but they can be especially fraught at small private colleges like Hamline, which are facing shrinking enrollment and growing financial pressures. To attract applicants, many of these colleges have diversified their curriculums and tried to be more welcoming to students who have been historically shut out of higher education.

Meanwhile, professors everywhere often face pushback for their academic decisions from activist students or conservative lawmakers.

Dr. López Prater's situation was especially precarious. She is an adjunct, one of higher education's underclass of teachers, working for little pay and receiving few of the workplace protections enjoyed by tenured faculty members.

University officials and administrators all declined interviews. But 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."

In a December interview with the school newspaper, the student who complained to the administration, Aram Wedatalla, described being 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."

Todd H. Green, who has written books about Islamophobia, said the conflict at Hamline was "tragic" because administrators pitted natural allies — those concerned about stereotypes of Muslims and Islam — against one another.

The administration, he said, "closed down conversation when they should have opened it up."

The Image

The painting shown in Dr. López Prater's class is in one of the earliest Islamic illustrated histories of the world, "A Compendium of Chronicles," written during the 14th century by Rashid-al-Din (1247-1318).

Shown regularly in art history classes, the painting shows a winged and crowned Angel Gabriel pointing at the Prophet Muhammad and delivering to him the first Quranic revelation. Muslims believe that the Quran comprises the words of Allah revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel.

The image is "a masterpiece of Persian manuscript painting," said Christiane Gruber, a professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan. It is housed at the University of Edinburgh; similar paintings have been on display at places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And a sculpture of the prophet is at the Supreme Court.

Dr. Gruber said that showing Islamic art and depictions of the Prophet Muhammad have become more common in academia, because of a push to "decolonize the canon" — that is, expand curriculum beyond a Western model.

Dr. Gruber, who wrote the essay in New Lines Magazine defending Dr. López Prater, said that studying Islamic art without the Compendium of Chronicles image "would be like not teaching Michaelangelo's David."

Yet, most Muslims believe that visual representations of Muhammad should not be viewed, even if the Quran does not explicitly prohibit them. The prohibition stems from the belief that an image of Muhammad could lead to worshiping the prophet rather than the god he served.

There are, however, a range of beliefs. Some Muslims distinguish between respectful depictions and mocking caricatures, while others do not subscribe to the restriction at all.

Omid Safi, a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University, said he regularly shows images of the Prophet Muhammad in class and without Dr. López Prater's opt-out mechanisms. He explains to his students that these images were works of devotion created by pious artists at the behest of devout rulers.

"That's the part I want my students to grapple with," Dr. Safi said. "How does something that comes from the very middle of the tradition end up being received later on as something marginal or forbidden?"

A Warning, and Then the Image

Dr. López Prater, a self-described art nerd, said she knew about the potential for conflict on Oct. 6, when she began her online lecture with 30 or so students.

She said she spent a few minutes explaining why she was showing the image, how different religions have depicted the divine and how standards change over time.

"I do not want to present the art of Islam as something that is monolithic," she said in an interview, adding that she had been shown the image as a graduate student. She also showed a second image, from the 16th century, which depicted Muhammad wearing a veil.

Dr. López Prater said that no one in class raised concerns, and there was no disrespectful commentary.

After the class ended, Ms. Wedatalla, a business major and president of the university's Muslim Student Association, stuck around to voice her discomfort.

Immediately afterward, Dr. López Prater sent an email to her department head, Allison Baker, about the encounter; she thought that Ms. Wedatalla might complain.

Ms. Baker, the chair of the digital and studio art department, responded to the email four minutes later.

"It sounded like you did everything right," Ms. Baker said. "I believe in academic freedom so you have my support."

As Dr. López Prater predicted, Ms. Wedatalla reached out to administrators. Dr. López Prater, with Ms. Baker's help, wrote an apology, explaining that sometimes "diversity involves bringing contradicting, uncomfortable and coexisting truths into conversation with each other."

Ms. Wedatalla declined an interview request, and did not explain why she had not raised concerns before the image was shown. But in an email statement, she said images of Prophet Muhammad should never be displayed, and that Dr. López Prater gave a trigger warning precisely because she knew such images were offensive to many Muslims. The lecture was so disturbing, she said, that she could no longer see herself in that course.

Four days after the class, Dr. López Prater was summoned to a video meeting with the dean of the college of liberal arts, Marcela Kostihova.

Dr. Kostihova compared showing the image to using a racial epithet for Black people, according to Dr. López Prater.

"It was very clear to me that she had not talked to any art historians," Dr. López Prater said.

A couple of weeks later, the university rescinded its offer to teach next semester.

Dr. López Prater said she was ready to move on. She had teaching jobs at other schools. But on Nov. 7, David Everett, the vice president for inclusive excellence, sent an email to all university employees, saying that certain actions taken in an online class were "undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic."

The administration, after meeting with the school's Muslim Student Association, would host an open forum "on the subject of Islamophobia," he wrote.

Dr. López Prater, who had only begun teaching at Hamline in the fall, said she felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over her head, but the shock soon gave way to "blistering anger at being characterized in those terms by somebody who I have never even met or spoken with." She reached out to Dr. Gruber, who ended up writing the essay and starting the petition.

An Emotional Forum

At the Dec. 8 forum, which was attended by several dozen students, faculty and administrators, Ms. Wedatalla described, often through tears, how she felt seeing the image.

"Who do I call at 8 a.m.," she asked, when "you see someone disrespecting and offending your religion?"

Other Muslim students on the panel, all Black women, also spoke tearfully about struggling to fit in at Hamline. Students of color in recent years had protested what they called racist incidents; the university, they said, paid lip service to diversity and did not support students with institutional resources...  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/08/us/hamline-university-islam-prophet-muhammad.html

[Wahoo Redux]

Just FYI: This is over on the "Cancelling Dr. Suess" thread, but I am glad to see a thread dedicated to the story.

[artalot]

I'm in the arts, so this has been blowing up my socials. I'll just say that I don't think what she did was wise, given the fact that she was teaching online (didn't know the students and couldn't read the room); it sounds like a required/general education course, so it's harder for students to opt out; and she was an adjunct with no job security and probably not a lot of experience at that school. That said, this professor absolutely introduced the topic well, explained what she was doing and why, and did tell students they could leave the class and/or turn off their screens. I don't think it was Islamophobic or a fireable offense, but I wouldn't have done it in that context.

[Wahoo Redux]

I'm in the arts, so this has been blowing up my socials. I'll just say that I don't think what she did was wise, given the fact that she was teaching online (didn't know the students and couldn't read the room); it sounds like a required/general education course, so it's harder for students to opt out; and she was an adjunct with no job security and probably not a lot of experience at that school. That said, this professor absolutely introduced the topic well, explained what she was doing and why, and did tell students they could leave the class and/or turn off their screens. I don't think it was Islamophobic or a fireable offense, but I wouldn't have done it in that context.

Was she teaching online? 

[Wahoo Redux]

Hamline student, former instructor at center of debate over religion, academic freedom speak out

[Scout]

I'm in the arts, so this has been blowing up my socials. I'll just say that I don't think what she did was wise, given the fact that she was teaching online (didn't know the students and couldn't read the room); it sounds like a required/general education course, so it's harder for students to opt out; and she was an adjunct with no job security and probably not a lot of experience at that school. That said, this professor absolutely introduced the topic well, explained what she was doing and why, and did tell students they could leave the class and/or turn off their screens. I don't think it was Islamophobic or a fireable offense, but I wouldn't have done it in that context.

Was she teaching online? 

The article quoted in the OP said she was.

ETA: from the OP "Dr. López Prater, a self-described art nerd, said she knew about the potential for conflict on Oct. 6, when she began her online lecture with 30 or so students."

[kaysixteen]

At some point, overpaid, underworked, and self-important adminiscritters need to tell spoiled children like this, 'too bad.  Shut up.   Go away.   College is designed to teach you stuff, including how to think and act.'.

Someone should also have pointed out to the young woman who complained that the offending painting was actually painted by a devout Muslim, on orders from a devout Muslim ruler, who were both acting in accordance with the views of an admittedly minority approach to this subject, within Islam.

[marshwiggle]

I'm in the arts, so this has been blowing up my socials. I'll just say that I don't think what she did was wise, given the fact that she was teaching online (didn't know the students and couldn't read the room); it sounds like a required/general education course, so it's harder for students to opt out; and she was an adjunct with no job security and probably not a lot of experience at that school. That said, this professor absolutely introduced the topic well, explained what she was doing and why, and did tell students they could leave the class and/or turn off their screens. I don't think it was Islamophobic or a fireable offense, but I wouldn't have done it in that context.

It's very sad that higher education has come to this.Instead of being a place where students can expect to be presented with ideas and information that will be unsettling at times, now the expectation has become the reverse; i.e. that encountering anything unsettling means that the place is "unsafe" for the student.

NOTE: Having a job, getting married, raising children, and most other adventures in life are EXTREMELY UNSAFE.

[artalot]

Again, I don't think she did anything objectively wrong and she should not have been fired or been called Islamaphobic (which one of the administrators did). BUT, images of the Prophet Muhammad are extremely offensive to Sunni Muslims, and they have been weaponized against them as anti-Islamic statements. There was the Dutch cartoon, Charlie Hebdo, and more recently a 'free speech' drawathon in Texas. Again, all legal, but also all aimed at offending Muslims; at least Charlie Hebdo made fun of everyone, the others were more targeted. In a world where images of the Prophet have been used in such hateful ways, I simply wouldn't show them in a general education course, especially an online course where so many of the students may have tuned out your framing, warnings, cautions, etc. The gut reaction of many Sunni Muslims would be to feel persecuted, that's not a space I want to create in the classroom. I don't mind offending students or making them uncomfortable when pedagogically relevant, but I don't want them to feel persecuted, especially when there are a lot of other images from that manuscript that she could have shown. This kind of imagery is more appropriate to upper-level courses with a smaller group of people, more familiarity with the material, and a greater opportunity to have a discussion.

[marshwiggle]

This kind of imagery is more appropriate to upper-level courses with a smaller group of people, more familiarity with the material, and a greater opportunity to have a discussion.

They're not going to be "familiar with the material" until someone presents the material, by definition. This situation is unavoidable, since there will always be a "first" time this is introduced.

[Wahoo Redux]

Again, I don't think she did anything objectively wrong and she should not have been fired or been called Islamaphobic (which one of the administrators did). BUT, images of the Prophet Muhammad are extremely offensive to Sunni Muslims, and they have been weaponized against them as anti-Islamic statements. There was the Dutch cartoon, Charlie Hebdo, and more recently a 'free speech' drawathon in Texas. Again, all legal, but also all aimed at offending Muslims; at least Charlie Hebdo made fun of everyone, the others were more targeted. In a world where images of the Prophet have been used in such hateful ways, I simply wouldn't show them in a general education course, especially an online course where so many of the students may have tuned out your framing, warnings, cautions, etc. The gut reaction of many Sunni Muslims would be to feel persecuted, that's not a space I want to create in the classroom. I don't mind offending students or making them uncomfortable when pedagogically relevant, but I don't want them to feel persecuted, especially when there are a lot of other images from that manuscript that she could have shown. This kind of imagery is more appropriate to upper-level courses with a smaller group of people, more familiarity with the material, and a greater opportunity to have a discussion.

These are very good points, but as with some of the conversation on other threads, the big problem I see is fundamentalist religion demanding that the rest of the world cave to its beliefs.

[financeguy]

The first line of President Miller's biography indicates that she's the "first african american and second woman" to hold the presidency at Hamline. The fact that this is the "opener" for someone who presumably has over twenty years of relevant academic experience to recount tells you all you need to know.

By the way, not for nothing, but this person's Ph.D. is from a religious institution, Texas Christian, so she obviously is comfortable with an environment where academic standards take a backseat to someone's personal superstitions.  At least you know this at TCU which is clearly branded. If we were at "Hamline Christian University" or "The Hamline Institute for Islamic Studies" we'd expect this type of prioritization, but absent that branding one assumes that a traditional academic institution hold traditional academic standards including those for academic freedom.

President Miller is an example of how people from faith baith institutions should be vetted for their willingness to adhere to traditional academic standards that may be inconsistent with their training. As bad as it may be to have a creationist hijack a STEM field with non-science related ideology, it is even worse to have someone with a Jesus Degree who thinks an education should coddle someone's personal belief in talking snakes and every species of animal on an ark RUNNING THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATION. This is not really surprising.

President Miller has no business running an academic institution outside of those offering faith-based training. Why is no one running with this angle?

[Wahoo Redux]

At some point, overpaid, underworked, and self-important adminiscritters need to tell spoiled children like this, 'too bad.  Shut up.   Go away.   College is designed to teach you stuff, including how to think and act.'.

Do you seen any irony (or hypocrisy) here in context of your own comments on other threads?

[apl68]

Again, I don't think she did anything objectively wrong and she should not have been fired or been called Islamaphobic (which one of the administrators did). BUT, images of the Prophet Muhammad are extremely offensive to Sunni Muslims, and they have been weaponized against them as anti-Islamic statements. There was the Dutch cartoon, Charlie Hebdo, and more recently a 'free speech' drawathon in Texas. Again, all legal, but also all aimed at offending Muslims; at least Charlie Hebdo made fun of everyone, the others were more targeted. In a world where images of the Prophet have been used in such hateful ways, I simply wouldn't show them in a general education course, especially an online course where so many of the students may have tuned out your framing, warnings, cautions, etc. The gut reaction of many Sunni Muslims would be to feel persecuted, that's not a space I want to create in the classroom. I don't mind offending students or making them uncomfortable when pedagogically relevant, but I don't want them to feel persecuted, especially when there are a lot of other images from that manuscript that she could have shown. This kind of imagery is more appropriate to upper-level courses with a smaller group of people, more familiarity with the material, and a greater opportunity to have a discussion.

It would probably be wiser to limit this to upper-level courses, all right.   

Thanks for attempting to bring some nuance to the discussion. 

[apl68]

The first line of President Miller's biography indicates that she's the "first african american and second woman" to hold the presidency at Hamline. The fact that this is the "opener" for someone who presumably has over twenty years of relevant academic experience to recount tells you all you need to know.

By the way, not for nothing, but this person's Ph.D. is from a religious institution, Texas Christian, so she obviously is comfortable with an environment where academic standards take a backseat to someone's personal superstitions.  At least you know this at TCU which is clearly branded. If we were at "Hamline Christian University" or "The Hamline Institute for Islamic Studies" we'd expect this type of prioritization, but absent that branding one assumes that a traditional academic institution hold traditional academic standards including those for academic freedom.

President Miller is an example of how people from faith baith institutions should be vetted for their willingness to adhere to traditional academic standards that may be inconsistent with their training. As bad as it may be to have a creationist hijack a STEM field with non-science related ideology, it is even worse to have someone with a Jesus Degree who thinks an education should coddle someone's personal belief in talking snakes and every species of animal on an ark RUNNING THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATION. This is not really surprising.

President Miller has no business running an academic institution outside of those offering faith-based training. Why is no one running with this angle?

If I read this right, faith-affiliated universities are not truly legitimate institutions of higher learning?  They only produce ignorant dogmatists, not people who can be trusted to have minds of their own?  And academics who graduated from them aren't real academics, and shouldn't be trusted with positions anywhere else?

Are you very familiar with TCU?  Or are you simply making assumptions based on the fact that it has "Christian" in its name?