Hamline University walked back its previous denunciations of an art history professor who showed a celebrated painting of Muhammad in class, conceding a “misstep,” but the backpedaling came too late to stave off litigation.
Former adjunct professor Erika Lopez Prater initiated legal action Tuesday with a lawsuit accusing the school in St. Paul, Minnesota, of discrimination and defamation, saying her reputation and employment prospects have been “irreparably harmed by Hamline’s conduct.”
Minneapolis attorney David Redden said the lawsuit was served Tuesday on Hamline and would be filed shortly in Ramsey County District Court.
The lawsuit came as Hamline issued a statement from Board of Trustees Chairwoman Ellen Watters and President Fayneese Miller saying the extensive national press coverage caused them to “review and re-examine our actions.”
“Like all organizations, sometimes we misstep,” said the Tuesday statement. “In the interest of hearing from and supporting our Muslim students, language was used that does not reflect our sentiments on academic freedom. Based on all that we have learned, we have determined that our usage of the term ‘Islamophobic’ was therefore flawed.”
They said Hamline would host “two major conversations,” the first on “academic freedom and student care,” the second on “academic freedom and religion.” The statement did not include an apology to Ms. Lopez Prater.
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The lawsuit argued that Hamline violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act’s prohibition against religious discrimination “because she did not conform her conduct to the religion-based preferences of Hamline that images of Muhammad not be shown to any Hamline student.”
“Hamline subjected Lopez Prater to several adverse employment actions, including, but not necessarily limited to, failing to renew her contract for the spring 2023 semester, breaching its contractual guarantee of academic freedom, publicly denouncing Lopez Prater as ‘Islamophobic’ and her conduct ‘an act of intolerance,’ announcing her nonrenewal before the end of fall semester classes and assisting and/or facilitating further public defamation and humiliation,” the motion said.
The head of the art department had discussed having Ms. Lopez Prater teach a class for the spring semester, according to the lawsuit, but that the offer was rescinded after the outcry over her Oct. 6 online lecture showing 14th- and 16th-century paintings of Muhammad.
Many Muslims object to visual depictions of Muhammad. The 14th-century image, made by a Muslim artist for a Muslim king, is considered an “artistic masterpiece,” the lawsuit said.
“It is undisputed that the painting was made with great reverence for Muhammad and Islam and could never be accurately labeled ‘Islamophobic,’” said the filing.
Professor Erika López Prater, an adjunct professor who was nonrenewed by @HamlineU for exercising her right to academic freedom, explains the importance of challenging students as a pedagogical tool in the classroom. pic.twitter.com/5HwntagWoT</ a>
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) January 17, 2023
Ms. Lopez Prater said she warned students during class and in her course syllabus that the images would be shown. She also submitted the syllabus to the department and administration. The school did not recommend any changes.
After a complaint from senior Aram Wedatalla, president of the Muslim Student Association, the department head suggested Ms. Lopez Prater apologize for making the student uncomfortable, which she did in an email. An administrator recommended apologizing to the class, which she did on Oct. 11.
Even so, David Everett, associate vice president for inclusive excellence, sent a Nov. 7 email to staff and students condemning Ms. Lopez Prater’s Oct. 6 lecture as “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic.”
The Oracle, the student newspaper, published a Dec. 6 article with comments from other school officials calling the lecture “an act of intolerance” and “something that in a million years, I never expected … would happen here at Hamline.”
The article and email did not mention Ms. Lopez Prater by name, but she was the only art historian teaching an art history class that semester at Hamline, the lawsuit said.
Mr. Everett then hosted a Dec. 8 “community conversation” on campus that included Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who called the images shown in class “racist” and “Islamophobic.”
The board of trustees announced Friday it would review the administration’s response to “recent student concerns and subsequent faculty concerns about academic freedom.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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