Faculty leaders at a Minnesota college who fired an art history professor who had shown depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in a class have overwhelmingly called for the university president’s resignation.
Hamline University faculty leaders said 71 out of 92 members who attended a meeting Tuesday voted to ask President Fayneese Miller to step down immediately.
They said they lost trust in Miller because she dealt with an objection from a Muslim student who said seeing the artwork violated her religious beliefs.
The professor who showed the artwork, Erika López Prater, sued the private liberal arts college last week after refusing to renew her contract.
Faculty leaders at a Minnesota college who fired art history lecturer Erika López Prater (pictured, right) who taught depictions of the Prophet Mohammed in a class, have overwhelmingly called for the resignation of college president Fayneese Miller (pictured, left).
“It became clear that the damage that has been done and the repair that needs to be done that new leadership is needed to move this forward,” Hamline University faculty council president Jim Scheibel told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.
The faculty objected to what they saw as a violation of academic freedom.
“We are dismayed that members of the administration mishandled this issue and greatly damaged the reputation of Minnesota’s oldest university,” the faculty board statement said.
It later said, “As we no longer have confidence in President Miller’s ability to advance the University, we urge her to immediately submit her resignation to the Board of Trustees of Hamline University.”
Following criticism from across the country, Miller admitted last week that she mishandled the episode, sparking debate about balancing academic freedom with respect for religion.
“Like all organizations, we sometimes make mistakes,” she said in a joint statement with the chair of the school’s board of trustees. “In the interest of hearing from and supporting our Muslim students, language has been used that does not reflect our attitude towards academic freedom. Based on everything we learned, we concluded that our use of the term “Islamophobic” was therefore flawed.
A spokesman for Hamline told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that Miller and her team were discussing how to respond to the faculty vote.
Hamline University faculty leaders said 71 out of 92 members who attended a meeting Tuesday voted to ask President Fayneese Miller to step down immediately
The professor who showed the artwork, Erika López Prater, sued the private liberal arts college last week after refusing to renew her contract
In October, Associate Professor Prater showed an online class a picture of the Prophet Mohammed as part of an art history class.
She warned the students who were virtually watching what she was up to, giving them ample warning to look away from the image if they were inclined to do so. In some – but not all – parts of Islam, looking at the image of the Prophet is forbidden.
After the class, Aram Wedatalla – a student who is also the president of the university’s Muslim Association – complained.
Wedatalla, the president of the university’s Muslim Association who led the campaign to get Lopez Prater fired, chose to stay online in class.
Afterwards, she and others promptly complained to school officials that the picture “taken them by surprise” and made her feel marginalized.
Aram Wedatalla complained to the school, claiming she was “taken by surprise” by the picture of the Prophet Mohammed, despite Professor Prater’s warnings on several occasions that she intended to show it. It was an online course that gave students the option to turn off their screens or look away
‘I am 23 years old. I have never seen an image of the Prophet,” she said in a conference broadcast live on CAIR-MN’s Facebook page, adding that she feels marginalized.
“It just breaks my heart that I have to stand here and tell people that something is Islamophobic and it really hurts us all, not just me.”
Prater, who had been hired for the first time that semester and was scheduled to return for the spring semester, was shown the door.
The university, which bowed to the demands of the Muslim association, called the incident “Islamophobic”.
It sparked an outcry among fellow Muslims and professors across the country, who said the school had stifled academic freedom.
In a statement, Hamline said it was a “misstep” to call the lesson Islamophobic. It came two hours after the professor and her lawyers filed a lawsuit
The professor found widespread support, with thousands signing a petition for her reinstatement
A Muslim professor accused the school of promoting an “extreme” Islamist perspective that few people hold.
The school initially chimed in, saying it wanted to protect its Muslim students and make them feel heard.
On January 14, Professor Prater broke her silence in a discussion with Muslim scholars.
“Having created Islamic art, I know that there are many practices in Islam, I know that historically there have been different attitudes to how the divine should be represented, but I know that contradiction is common in many religions is – it is not specific to Islam.
“In my syllabus I noted that I would show both representative and non-representative sacred figures such as Prophet Muhammad and Jesus Christ and Buddha.
The CAIR, led by Nihad Awad, joined organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU, PEN America, the New York Times and Fox News Friday in condemning the shooting
The statement made no mention of how the firing was previously celebrated by CAIR-MN’s Jaylani Hussein, the Minnesota cult’s executive director. Hussein last week criticized the academic’s decision to display the artwork aggressively and as “an act of Islamophobia.”
“During my classes, I pointed out to my students that I was about to show an image of Prophet Muhammad, I explained my reasons for doing so, but also to demonstrate the rich diversity in the history of Islam.
“Of course, in an art history class, images are the primary source documents that we use as evidence to learn about different cultures, ways of thinking and attitudes.
“I spent a few minutes explaining it to the students before showing the pictures. I told my students that if they don’t feel comfortable visually, they can do whatever makes most sense to them.
“I’ve tried to empower them to leave the video portion of the online classroom or to do whatever makes most sense to them.
“I’m not a mind reader. My discussion in my class was fact based and explained the beginnings of Islam itself.
Wedatalla, the president of the university’s Muslim Association who led the campaign to get Lopez Prater fired, chose to stay online in class
Wetdatalla spoke about the incident at a press conference on Jan. 11
“All the images I used were very respectful, they should be educational and also relate to their original historical context.”
Professor Prater added that the student said her warnings “didn’t matter.”
“She had some pretty strong feelings that she expressed to me. But one of them, which perhaps gets to the heart of the matter, was that she thought the warnings I had given the class didn’t even matter because she believed that images of the Prophet Muhammad were never complete should be shown.’
The trainer alleges in her lawsuit that Hamline subjected her to religious discrimination and defamation and damaged her professional and personal reputation.
The American Association of University Professors, which is committed to academic freedom, has launched an investigation and is planning a campus visit next month.
While leaders of some local Muslim groups have criticized López Prater, the Council’s national office on American-Islamic Relations has denied claims that her actions were Islamophobic.
The group said professors who analyze images of the Prophet Muhammad for academic purposes are not the same as “Islamophobes who display such images to cause offense.”