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 possible.
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on the university’s initial statement that “respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom….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Hamline’s president, Fayneese S. Miller, co-signed an email that said respect for the Muslim students “should have superseded academic freedom.”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 does Wedatalla’s feelings trump the education of every other student in that class? And why does 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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