Muslim or American?

 

 

Muslim or American?

This was once thought too controversial

 

The answer to the question above should be obvious: Both. Except, it’s not.

 

Explain why Erika López was fired by Hamline University for showing an iconic 14^th century painting that depicted Mohmmad. She was an adjunct art professor who took extraordinary steps not to be controversial. Her syllabus stated that some of the semester’s images might alarm students. She gave “trigger warnings” each time she planned to show something that might be troubling, and held office hours to explain her rationale, but no one was forbidden to opt out. In the case of the Mohammad image, López took the further step of inviting students who didn’t want to see it to leave and gave them time to do so.

 

After all that, a student complained. Images of Mohammad are forbidden in some sects of Islam. This is odd; unlike Jesus for Christians, Mohammad is not endowed with divinity. I support the right of religious people to determine what is sacred and what is profane–within their own faith. That last phrase is crucial. In a democratic society, no religious group can dictate what others create, display, or depict. They have the right to be upset, but freedom of speech extends to images. Recent Supreme Court weakening of religion versus state barriers notwithstanding, at present the United States of America remains a secular society.

 

Now let’s get to even weirder matters. Hamline University is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Surely Muslim students would know this, just as someone enrolling at West Point knows it’s affiliated with the U.S. military. Colleges want students to be safe, but for the love of whatever deity you follow, where is it written that education should make students feel “comfortable?” There’s no point to colleges that don’t challenge students to assess the preconceptions they bring with them to class. An echo is not an education and professors should not be parrots.

 

Let’s go deeper. López wasn’t seeking controversy, but would she would have been fired had she shown Andres Serrano’s 1987 photo “Piss Christ?” For any art lesson dealing with controversy that image and Renée Cox’s “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” would be near the top of the list. Go to Google Images and you’ll find both images and others that offend Christians. None are banned. Try searching for the painting that got López fired; if you find it at all, Mohammad’s face is blurred out. Double standard?

 

It's not hard to find campus protests against Israel. Many Jews find these offensive and they often are. You can be booted from school for directing Anti-Semitic comments at individuals, but as long as you universalize, the First Amendment applies. It’s also okay for radio shock jocks to rant about Jewish laser beams and Jewish bankers bent on world domination. If you’re not as dumb as a Ding Dong, you find such things ridiculous, but you probably don’t recommend trashing free speech.  

 

More weird stuff. Why does the quest to “prove” you are not Islamophobic involve acceptance of things Muslim? Like Israeli settlements in Palestine and extremist Christian ministers, Islam has things for which it should answer. Misogynous practices are high on the list and Islamicist extremism is another. How about the appalling assassination of Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris? Or bombings around the globe like one that killed 121 people in Somalia? Should I add 9/11? You’re a humanist, not a bigot, if the Taliban, ISIS, or El-Shabab offends you.  

 

Hamline’s president, Fayneese Miller takes the Weirdness cake. She remarked, “…respect for … observant Muslim students should have superseded academic freedom.” Wow! Isn’t this akin to what Sen. Joseph McCarthy said when explaining why academic freedom shouldn’t protect those accused of being sympathetic to communism? Miller added that academic freedom, “should not come at the expense of care and decency toward others.” Huh!??? López bent over backward to do that. By the way, Miller is African American. I wonder if she’d support firing a history professor whose rightwing students objected to pictures of civil rights demonstrations, or a government professor who defended taking down Confederate statues?

 

I had never heard of Hamelin (St. Paul, Minnesota) until the López kerfuffle, but it strikes me as a good candidate to be the next small college to folds its tents. BY the way, it has 178 fulltime faculty, but 215 adjuncts. Future adjuncts would have to be pretty hard up to teach there after what happened to López. Hamelin should immediately lose its accreditation.

 

If you agree with what Hamelin did, I don’t care what your religion might be; you are an enemy of freedom, the First Amendment, and democracy. For the record, Hamelin’s Latin motto translates as: “Divinity, Writing, Liberty.” It made mockery of the latter. 

 

 Both of these are among the many works that "offended" people.