There has been little reason to write about the travails of Hamline University adjunct professor Erika López Prater, fired for the “harm” she caused by showing a Muslim-created “renowned 14th century painting depicting the Prophet Muhammad” in a class about Islamic art. After all, there has been near universal support for the professor, both as a matter of academic freedom and because she did everything humanly possible to accommodate the most fragile sensibility of students.
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.
There has similarly been near universal condemnation of the university for saying the quiet part out loud:
Hamline President Fayneese Miller has since doubled down on the university’s initial statement that “respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom…. Academic freedom is very important, but it does not have to come at the expense of care and decency toward others.” On December 31, she wrote: “Students do not relinquish their faith in the classroom,” suggesting any teaching that might offend a student’s religion could be censored. Anthony Gockowski, Hamline stands by removal of art instructor, Alpha News (Jan. 3, 2023).
While outside the university, this brought a robust response of outrage, that was not the case inside the campus.
Hamline’s president, Fayneese S. Miller, co-signed an email that said respect for the Muslim students “should have superseded academic freedom.”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.
As one would expect, FIRE has come to the professor’s defense although it would be hard to imagine why any professor would want to teach at a university that took this position or to a student body sought out reasons to find grievance and claim victimhood. But was this as outrageous as it seems? Was the student merely a whiny bombthrower looking for something, anything, to whine about?
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.”
Putting aside the stunningly disingenuous complaint that she was “blindsided” after have been fully informed well in advance, and then advised yet again to avert her gaze should that be her wish, is there any rational legitimacy to her complaint? A letter writer to the New York Times sought to defend Wedatalla’s “honor” by rationalizing why both she and the professor can be right.
In the rush to identify villains and heroes, we lose sight of the complicated possibility that a) the professor was justified and well intentioned and b) the student was nevertheless genuinely offended by the professor’s decision to show the image.
Or that a) the professor gave opt-out options in advance but b) the student didn’t feel empowered to exercise them fully.
This reflects a pervasive problem in so many of the fashionable rationalizations surrounding the traumatization of the woke, that there is an untestable and uncontestable excuse for everything. The student was “genuinely offended”? So what? The student’s feelings have no relevance to the content of the course curriculum. The student didn’t “feel empowered” to opt out? So what? What more could the prof do, other than not teach?
Well, “not teach” really is the answer to some.
During class, Dr. López Prater could have provided a link to the painting, offering options to participate by viewing or listening (as it’s unfair to ask students to leave the class). Before offering such options, educators can seek guidance from experts with different perspectives as well as from students themselves, through one-to-one conversations, written reflections, anonymous surveys or dialogues with student organizations.
Ultimately what matters most is the students’ right to a quality education, which requires taking their needs into account and not forcing them to adopt an educator’s choice of whether or how to perceive an object.
A truly just and fair education enables freedom of thought and expression for all. Aram Wedatalla, the student who objected to the showing of the painting, courageously expressed her viewpoint, thus opening a broader and necessary conversation about what inclusion really means.
The letter writer is right, that what matters most is the students’ right to a quality education. The letter writer is wrong that a quality education “requires taking their needs into account” by depriving students of the substance of the curriculum lest one student feel something, whether genuine offense or the faux offense that students pretend harms and traumatizes them so they can enjoy the venerated status of student-victim and accuser of offense.
Had Prof. López Prater not shown the image in a class about Muslim art to make the point that it was not monolithic, she would have deprived the rest of the class, except for the president of the Muslim Students Association, a valuable piece of their education. Is the education of the class secondary to the feelings of any individual student?
Why do Wedatalla’s feelings trump the education of every other student in that class? And why do Wedatalla’s feelings matter at all. This is college, not therapy. If never being exposed to anything she might complain about is the goal, then curl up in a corner in a padded room. College is meant to educate, to expose and to challenge.
If the university had begun with a presumption that all of these things were simultaneously true and had attempted to find a better conflict resolution process along the lines of restorative justice, both the student and the professor might have felt that they had benefited from the conflict.
Both universities and students need to pick a side. Are they there to educate or coddle? They can’t do both, no matter how many warm and buzzy words you try to wrap around reality.
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There is a secondary aspect to this as well. The student spoke with the prof after class, but that wasn’t good enough. She had to complain to the administration lest she deal with her problem like a budding adult rather than run to daddy to punish the mean prof.
She knew this thing was deeper than one professor. The freaking place is named “HAM-line.” OF COURSE observant muslims are going to feel alienated and unvalued. It is unconscionable, and the offensive name must be changed at once!!! To avoid offense to vegans, they need to forego consideration of “Beefline,” “Muttonline” or “Chickenline,” and since “Vegaline” has already been preempted by the purveyors of a petroleum jelly substitute, they should settle on an innocuous, general name like “Chowline.”
She was “blindsided” in the same way that some of my students are routinely “blindsided” by the fact that they have homework, which, thanks to the advances of modern education, they no longer even have to take the trouble to write down, because I’m required to post it for them on the online platform.
As a former jr hs teacher I regularly watched the encroachment of baby sitting culture. Students could no longer be expected to write down homework on paper. They were given special notebooks with a special square for hw that parents were expected to sign on a daily basis. Some teachers were really on it-holding their feet to the fire. But the 5 minutes it took her to check all this daily was weeks of instructional time at years end. Yes…she had them working independently while this happened, so it wasn’t a complete loss. But one can see the long term effects of this: Students at older and more advanced levels have been coddled in the attempt to do as little as possible for the highest grade. By the time I left teaching, many of these students seemed overly preoccupied with their grades, during class, despite the fact they could look them up online anytime after school. Meanwhile, these 8th graders hardly knew the names for all 50 states and could hardly use the text independently. So take your hats off to the results of attempting to warehouse latchkey kids from the shreds of society by “creating success.” We are running around trying to place a hoop under the ball they throw in any direction…and the local administration prefers these “engaged” students who hype themselves as rising stars.
Was this a post about the efficacy of homework?
Not meant to be. It was about agency and attempting to be responsible for one’s educational progress. Sorry if it’s a bit convoluted.
This is the Chinese Cultural Revolution, reborn in the USA. Passionate, crazed students who are driven by elders who want to destroy the current version of civilization, generate outrage about every trivial harm they can contrive.
Sounds like the student set up the professor, particularly since he professor took pains to announce content of the course which some students might find objectionable. I just had a look at the student’s photos online (Google search with name as search term, then look at images). She’s attractive, and the poses I saw were semi-seductive. Anyway, she doesn’t present herself as a true Muslim adherent. In her actions against the professor and her photographs, she’s seen as what she really is — a individual steeped in contemporary American culture, especially of victimhood, with the looks and knowledge of how to capitalize on this in the best capitalist tradition. I expect she’ll move fast enough, like the first generation of Black Lives Matter activists, to become rich before anyone becomes aware of the scam going on. Basically, she has a problem with Muslims and Muslim religious authorities who would allow such supposedly offensive art work to remain public for the appreciation and education of others.
Perhaps this was a case of you seeing in the photos what you wanted to see.
No disagreement that the student apparently set up the professor, but the photos are not good evidence of that.
I wasn’t implying that the photos were indication that the student set up the professor. The evidence that the professor was set up is that the professor was permitted to proceed with what she said she was going to do in her course without objection from the student; and then when the professor went ahead with doing what she said she was going to do, the student then complained. The student used her free will in exposing herself to the image of the prophet. As for the student’s photos, I agree they are not unusual or provocative. But as I see them, they are not ones that represent or go with the regard or treatment (visual or social or behavioral) of women in the kind of Muslim society the student claims to be a part of and whose values an beliefs she claims she is defending. The student is a familiar American hustler, a career choice which often pays off handsomely.
If it is true that the student is from Sudan, then it seems likely she identifies with a minority fundamentalist sect of Islam that took root in her country, known as Wahhabism. Few Muslims support fundamentalist proscriptions of Sharia Law, never mind Wahhabism, which demands coercion to enforce Sharia laws.
Yet clearly, as her social media images show, she enjoys living in a free society in America where women (NB: Im not a biologist) can be leaders, can receive an education and dress as they please. This poor professor deserved far better but apparently the university enabled the student to declare a Fatwa against their “oppressors”, which is truly rich.
If only the strictest version of any religion is accepted, that means not only the 14th century devout Muslim who created the image, but all the millions of contemporary Muslims who consider reverential depictions of Mohammed to be religiously good are “wrong”.
Will it also be prohibited in the name of being progressive to invite speakers on campus who are e.g. female imams, rabbis, priests or ministers because only some Muslims/Jews/Christians consider women in those roles to be valid?
With apologies to Hunting Guy for drifting into his lane.
H.L. Mencken:
“We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”
One wonders if Hamline would discipline a professor for showing some of the photography of Andres Serrano because it would offend Christian sensibilities.
How does the race thing get into it? Was she doubly offended in that the forbidden image of the prophet didn’t depict him as sufficiently black? Is it reasonable for her to cast that as somehow a non-acceptance of her on campus, given that the image was painted by a Muslim artist, in a distant land, in the 14th century? It all just seems so brainless. I have a haunting feeling this is not the first really stupid decision at Hamline. Maybe this time, they will pay the piper.
It’s just a ritual at this point, like a 15th Century nobleman announcing his full list of titles when his honor as Viscount of Saxony has been affronted: recite one protected category that is relevant to the offense claimed (in this case, Muslim), and then also throw in all your other protected categories. Actual and aspiring influencers on YouTube and TikTok do this all the time over social media drama.
“we lose sight of the complicated possibility….the student was nevertheless genuinely offended”
Ah yes, the narcissism of “if you disagree you must not understand my feelings on the matter.” Any parent of an eight year old is familiar with this argument. So very complicated.
Perhaps it’s even more sinister for the university to cave to people they know to be trolls, but most reasonable and intelligent people will also see a big problem with allowing education to be dictated by people who are sincere in their religious and/or ideological fundamentalism.
So a near adult student can’t bear the trauma of seeing a portrait of Mohammad but near toddlers can withstand the trauma of Drag Queen Story Hour? Got it!