{"id":44401,"date":"2023-02-26T21:25:25","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T05:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=44401"},"modified":"2023-02-26T21:25:25","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T05:25:25","slug":"looking-at-hamline-in-the-mirror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2023\/02\/looking-at-hamline-in-the-mirror\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking at Hamline in the mirror"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve followed the controversy at Hamline University<\/a> (located in St. Paul, Minnesota) in recent months with BYU in the back of your mind, you might have felt a degree of familiarity.<\/p>\n

Let me point out at the outset that I like Hamline. Once when I was desperately looking for my next job, they invited me to campus for an interview and I came away favorably impressed. The search committee, less so. In my defense, I was still recovering from the kind of flu that leaves basic biological and cognitive subsystems discombobulated, and I couldn\u2019t sleep the night before the interview. More importantly, the other candidate was a much better fit for the position than I was.<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t been following<\/a> the controversy<\/a> \u2013 first brought to national attention by Newlines Magazine<\/a>\u00a0 \u2013 the basic facts are that an adjunct professor of art history told the students in her online Islamic art history course last fall that she was about to show 14th and 16th-century Persian depictions of Muhammad, but she would understand if any student chose not to view them; she then showed the images. A student, also president of Hamline\u2019s Muslim Students Association, viewed the images but later complained that showing them in class amounted to Islamophobia, a charge that was repeated in the student newspaper. Rather than calming the situation, the adults in charge fanned the flames. The adjunct instructor was non-rehired for the spring semester. An associate vice president called the showing of Islamic depictions of Muhammad in an Islamic art course \u201cundeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic.\u201d The university president sent out an e-mail stating that \u201crespect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom,\u201d and later released another statement questioning the good faith of her critics. PEN, CAIR, and other organizations weighed in, the Hamline faculty have called on the president to resign, and a lawsuit has been filed.<\/p>\n

For people with connections to BYU, it\u2019s an instructive case for several reasons.<\/p>\n