Top Muslim Rights Group Rebukes Hamline University For Sacking Professor Who Showed Painting of Muhammad
Aram Wedatalla, left, a Hamline University senior, listens as Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR, speaks during a news conference. Kerem Yücel/Minnesota Public Radio via AP.
A top Muslim civil rights group rejected accusations of Islamophobia swirling around a college professor who was dropped from her job after showing a painting of the prophet Muhammad to her students.
The incident took place last year in an online global art history class taught by Erika López Prater, who was an adjunct professor at Hamline University in Minnesota. Prater told her students the course would touch on religious iconography, including a famed 14th-century painting of Muhammad.
Because depictions of Muhammad are considered taboo by some conservative members of the Islamic faith, López Prater took precautions by warning her students she would be showing the painting multiple times in advance, and she encouraged them to reach out to her if they had concerns or wanted to opt out. The New York Times reported that after López Prater showed painting to the class in October, a Muslim student complained to the administration.
The uproar that followed led Hamline University’s Board of Trustees to let López Prater go this month, and they announced a review of their policies to balance respect student well-being with academic freedom. NBC News reported that Aram Wedatalla, the student who led the complaints against López Prater, approved the move by saying “It just breaks my heart that I have to stand here to tell people that something is Islamophobic and something actually hurts all of us, not only me.”
The firing was celebrated by Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who condemned the Muhammad depiction as “blasphemy.”
CAIR has now released its official position on the controversy, siding with the fired professor over the student who complained — as well as Hussein.
In a press release, CAIR states that while they frown upon visual representations of the prophet, they’ve seen “no evidence” that López Prater was Islamophobic or acting upon bigotry:
Although we strongly discourage showing visual depictions of the Prophet, we recognize that professors who analyze ancient paintings for an academic purpose are not the same as Islamophobes who show such images to cause offense. Based on what we know up to this point, we see no evidence that Professor Erika López Prater acted with Islamophobic intent or engaged in conduct that meets our definition of Islamophobia…
Academics should not be condemned as bigots without evidence or lose their positions without justification.
The organization went on to urge those involved with the controversy to re-examine their decisions, even as they encouraged Hamline to mind the concern of their Muslim students. The Muslim Public Affairs Council also put out a statement in López Prater’s defense, and she stood by her decision to show the image on the grounds exploring different viewpoints about Islam.
