A Minnesota university art instructor was fired over alleged "Islamophobia."
The Oracle, Hamline University's student newspaper, published an article condemning an unnamed teacher who dared show depictions of the Prophet Muhammad to her art class.
For many Muslims, any depiction of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, is deeply offensive.
According to The Oracle, the art was shared on Oct. 6 during an online lecture in an art history class. Before showing the students the art, the teacher gave context for the images and explained that "while many Islamic cultures strongly frown on (depicting the Prophet) … there is no one, monothetic Islamic culture."
And then came the outrage.
Aram Wedatalla was one of the victims who had to see such offensive images.
Wedatalla told The Oracle:
I'm like, ‘This can't be real.' 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.
The teacher apologized to her student, but this wasn't enough.
Wedatalla pressed the matter with the school, and the Dean of students sent an email to all students condemning the incident as "undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful, and Islamophobic."
Is it really, though?
The teacher was told she would not have her contract renewed.
Earlier this month, the school brought Jaylani Hussein, executive director of Minnesota's chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, to lead a "community conversation" about Islamophobia.
Hussein said:
Many of the Muslim students on campus, after they heard of this incident, it impacted them. It impacted their grades, it impacted them finishing off the semester. They obviously were hurt. At the same time, they're appreciative of the institution doing the right thing.
For us Muslims, it is blasphemy. We don't have any of those images, we don't share those images, regardless of who drew it… it doesn't matter. Any depictions of Prophet Muhammad is frowned upon. It is an act of insult.
Hussein claims that the teacher "chose the most Islamophobic pictures [from] an ocean of Islamic art," but some academics are disputing that.
Christiane Gruber, a leading art scholar and professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan, called one of the pieces, a 14th-century painting of Muhammad receiving his first Quranic revelation from the angel Gabriel, an "irreplaceable work of art" that is used widely in global survey classes on art history.
In a piece for News Lines Magazine, Gruber wrote:
Hamline administrators have labeled this corpus of Islamic depictions of Muhammad, along with their teaching, as hateful, intolerant and Islamophobic. And yet the visual evidence proves contrary.
The images were made, almost without exception, by Muslim artists for Muslim patrons in respect for, and in exaltation of, Muhammad and the Quran. They are, by definition, Islamophilic from their inception to their reception.
Gruber also started an online petition in support of the instructor that has garnered over 2,200 signatures. She is not the only academic pushing back on this nonsense.
Amna Khalid, a Muslim associate history professor at Carleton College, said Hamline's labeling the art as Islamophobic "privileged a most extreme and conservative Muslim point of view" and that the school's actions will have a chilling effect on academic freedom.
Khalid wrote a letter published in the Chronicle of Higher Education that said:
Barring a professor of art history from showing this painting, lest it harm observant Muslims in class, is just as absurd as asking a biology professor not to teach evolution because it may offend evangelical Protestants in the course.
PEN America, a New York-based nonprofit that advocates for free expression, called Hamline's decision "one of the most egregious violations of academic freedom in recent memory."
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression called on Hamline to reinstate the lecturer, writing that "blanket bans on displaying pedagogically relevant material are not acceptable at a university that commits to academic freedom."
The Oracle also published a letter from Mark Berkon, professor and chair of Hamline's religion department, which disputed the school's characterization of the instructor's decision as Islamophobic.
I believe that, in the context of an art history classroom, showing an Islamic representation of the Prophet Muhammad, a painting that was done to honor Muhammad and depict an important historical moment, is not an example of Islamophobia.
Labeling it this way is not only inaccurate but also takes our attention off of real examples of bigotry and hate.
Although many academics are pushing back, the woke mob is always the loudest.
A student staff member of The Oracle removed Berkson's letter soon after it was published, explaining, "Those in our community have expressed that a letter we published has caused them harm."
Berkson responded to his letter being removed by explaining that it is important to recognize such images can be problematic for students, but it's also essential to challenge students and open their minds about uncomfortable topics.
Imagine that! Students being challenged and encouraged to open their minds!
"Religions are all incredibly diverse, so there are going to be disputes within religions about all kinds of issues, including this issue of representational art," he said. "The problem is, the university, the administration, cannot take sides in a religious debate."
