we've been before: prof fired for supposed "Islamophobia"

Headline:

She Lost Her Job For Showing a Painting of Muhammad in Class. Now, She's Suing.

Hamline University, a liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota, has come under fire in recent weeks after it refused to renew the contract of an adjunct professor who had shown images of the Prophet Muhammad in an art history class. Now the professor at the center of the controversy is suing, alleging religious discrimination and defamation.

In October, Erika López Prater, an adjunct professor at Hamline, showed students in an art history class two images of Muhammad. Both images were created by Muslim artists in the 14th and 16th centuries and were intended to show devotion and reverence to the prophet.

According to the lawsuit, López Prater was aware that some observant Muslim students would not wish to view the images and made considerable efforts to accommodate them. López Prater wrote in the course syllabus that the class would include "showing and discussing both representational and non-representational depictions of holy figures (for example, the Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ, and the Buddha)," adding, "if you have any questions or concerns about either missing class for a religious observance or the visual content that will be presented, please do not hesitate to contact me."

No students expressed concerns to López Prater, according to the lawsuit. López Prater also warned students multiple times during the class itself, giving them ample opportunity to leave class or look away.

That wasn't enough for Aram Wedatalla, the president of Hamline's Muslim Student Association. Wedatalla complained first to López Prater and then to the school's administration. Within weeks, López Prater had been formally denounced by the administration, which described her actions as "Islamophobic" and insisted that "respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom."

The lawsuit alleges that López Prater was informed that, contrary to a previous assurance, she would not be welcome back to teach the following semester. As one administrator told Hamline's student newspaper, "it was decided it was best that this faculty member was no longer part of the Hamline community."

The school faced widespread condemnation for its actions, with the Council on American-Islamic Relations even releasing a statement defending López Prater. "Although we strongly discourage showing visual depictions of the Prophet," the statement reads, "professors who analyze ancient paintings for an academic purpose are not the same as Islamophobes who show such images to cause offense."

On Tuesday, López Prater filed a lawsuit against the school, alleging that the school engaged in religious discrimination and defamation against her, as well as violating its contractual guarantee of academic freedom.

Good for the professor re: suing. She should utterly gouge the university for being so craven. Comments at Instapundit, where I found a link to the above article, have been interesting. Some commenters snidely remark that the prof is merely getting a taste of the Democrat mindset she voted for (the article doesn't mention her political affiliation). I wrote the following comment:

Supposedly, Islam has an injunction against depicting any living creature, which is why so much Muslim art focuses on geometric figures and flowing Arabic calligraphy. It's beautiful stuff, but I'm pretty sure that some (or many) Muslims don't care about the original injunction: just Google "Muhammad and the Buraq" (also called "al-Buraq" because "al" just means "the," as in "al-Lah," "the God"), and you'll see a classic bit of artwork that shows two living creatures: Muhammad himself and the Buraq, a mythical beast carrying the prophet heavenward.

There are so many Jews who enjoy pepperoni pizza, plenty of Muslims who drink, numerous Buddhist monks who eat meat (including the Dalai Lama). Precepts-breaking is part of religion. It's a sociological reality, just something that people do to the extent that they feel free to think for themselves. Draw a line when creating a stricture, and people will cross that line.

The more laws there are, the more criminals there are.

—Tao Te Ching, 57

That's a Tao Te Ching quote that I slap up on this blog rather often because it's evergreen. I've put up that Muhammad/Buraq picture before as well, but here's a version of it:

This scene from the legends has been depicted several times. In some versions, Muhammad's face is not shown (because of another injunction against depicting the Prophet explicitly), so I like the above artwork thanks to its transgressive nature.

Whatever her politics, I hope Prater cleans out Hamline.