- Hamline University dismissed a professor who showed a portrait of an unveiled Prophet Muhammad, which Islam religion claims should not be depicted.
- The university reportedly claimed that “respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom” in a faculty-wide email.
- “Hamline’s decision appears to violate a core tenet of academic freedom: teachers’ ability to discuss and depict facts as they are, even when some people may find them offensive,” University of California at Los Angeles law professor Eugene Volokh told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Hamline University, a private liberal arts school in Minnesota, dismissed an unnamed professor for alleged “Islamophobia” after he showed a portrait of an unveiled Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on Islamic art, the university’s student newspaper reported.
The professor showed the portrait during a lesson on Islamic art but told students that they could look away if viewing the image would violate their religious beliefs, as it is the Islamic view that the Prophet Muhammed should not be depicted, according to the student newspaper The Oracle. A student reported the lesson to the university administration on Oct. 7, and David Everett, associate vice president of inclusive excellence, sent an email on Nov. 7 that called the incident “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic.”
Everett later told the outlet in a Nov. 11 interview that “[i]n lieu of this incident, it was decided it was best that this faculty member was no longer part of the Hamline community.” (RELATED: Critics Slam ‘Anti-Islamophobia’ Bill)
“Hamline’s decision appears to violate a core tenet of academic freedom: teachers’ ability to discuss and depict facts as they are, even when some people may find them offensive,” University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) law professor Eugene Volokh told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Prohibitions on blasphemy have no place in serious universities, and art history professors must be able to show important works of art (in this case, major examples of a particular Islamic artistic tradition), even if some students might disapprove of them.”
Everett and the university president, however, reportedly claimed in a faculty-wide email that “respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) sent a letter to the university on Tuesday asking that they reinstate the professor. The free speech watchdog group acknowledged that the school is not bound by the First Amendment since it is a private institution, but claimed that it has a responsibility to uphold academic freedom.
“An instructor’s right to navigate difficult material—like whether to display a historical painting of Muhammad when many Muslims believe Muhammad ‘should not be pictured in any way’—is well within Hamline’s commitment to protect academic speech that may “potentially be unpopular and unsettling,” the letter reads.
Sabrina Conza, FIRE program officer for campus rights advocacy, reiterated to the DCNF that Hamline University “violated its commitment to respect faculty’s academic freedom by dismissing an art history instructor for displaying Medieval artwork depicting Muhammad in class.”
“Academic freedom gives faculty the breathing room to determine what materials to teach and how to teach them so long as they are pedagogically relevant to the class,” she continued. “Medieval artwork, including art depicting Muhammad, is clearly relevant to an art history course, and nonrenewing the instructor for teaching relevant material is a gross violation of academic freedom. Hamline must reinstate the instructor and reaffirm its academic freedom commitments to all faculty at the university.”
FIRE calls on Hamline University to reinstate art history instructor dismissed for showing medieval depiction of Muhammad https://t.co/BLmR6JtRJS
— Greg Lukianoff (@glukianoff) December 28, 2022
The portrait featured “Muhammad receiving his first Quranic revelation through the Angel Gabriel,” according to Christiane Gruber, a professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan. She explained that the portrait is “taught in Islamic art history classes at universities across the world, including in the U.S., Europe, the Arab world, Turkey and Iran.”
“Hamline is either ushering in a new regime in which any religious group (whether some subset of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, or anyone else) can veto the display of art, or for that matter the discussion of ideas and beliefs that they find offensive – or it’s setting up a special rule just for Muslim students who object just to depictions of Muhammad; and either of those alternatives is contrary to the basic tenets of freedom of inquiry,” Volokh told the DCNF.
Gruber started a petition to support the professor on Dec. 24 and addressed it to Hamline University and the Board of Trustees. It amassed more than 800 signatures at the time of publication.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, also defended the professor’s academic freedom in a Dec. 28 blog post.
“The question now is whether other Hamline faculty will stand up to defend their colleague and academic freedom,” he concluded. “The non-renewal of this contract professor will send a chilling message to all ‘contingent faculty.’ The burden, therefore, must be shouldered by tenured faculty in defending the essential values needed to sustain a vibrant intellectual community.”
Hamline University, the Office of the President, Gruber and Everett did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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