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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32159 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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You might recall that an adjunct professor was let go from Hamline University after a Muslim student complained about a depiction of the prophet Muhammad shown in class. The immediate responses were not terribly surprising to me. Given past incidents, I assumed that college administrators would have an interest towards affirming the student's complaint, no matter how unreasonable it was. This panned out, with the university president issuing a very bizarre statement where she presented non-sequiturs like:

To suggest that the university does not respect academic freedom is absurd on its face. Hamline is a liberal arts institution, the oldest in Minnesota, the first to admit women, and now led by a woman of color. To deny the precepts upon which academic freedom is based would be to undermine our foundational principles.

What do the demographics of the university president have to do with academic freedom? Fuck if I know.

Similarly, I also assumed that non-profit organizations would have an interest to bolster their profile by seizing upon the incident. This too panned out, with the local Minnesota Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter condemning the professor as Islamophobic. The local chapter's executive director even dismissed the fact that the professor went out of her way to add a content warning and said "In reality a trigger warning is an indication that you are going to do harm."

Since then, things have changed. First, the national CAIR organization felt the need to step in and rebuke the local chapter, and issued a (tepid) defense of the scorned professor. Then, Hamline University faculty just voted overwhelmingly (71-12) to ask the president to step down. For a defense of freedom of expression, the statement they issued is (at least on its face) pretty good.

Both of these developments surprised me, and it made me wonder whether this is a sign of a potential turning point on the topic of suppressed freedom of expression on campus.

the local Minnesota Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter condemning the professor as Islamophobic

Yes, standard accusations of Islamophobia. But also:

“If you want to know how people respond, you've seen what happened in the horrible tragedies of Charlie Hebdo..."

-Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

I didn't know about these comments before and they seem even worse in context:

When Hussein opened the floor for questions, the first was from Mark Berkson, chair of Hamline’s religion department. “I’ve taught Islam at Hamline for 22 years,” Berkson began. “This event was organized in response to something very particular. This wasn’t hate speech or vandalism or violence.” Berkson’s core objection was that, contrary to Hussein’s claims, there has been historically, and is even now, substantial diversity of opinion within Islam on the extent to which images of the Prophet are forbidden. “What does one do when the Muslim community itself is divided on an issue? There are many Muslim scholars, and experts, and art historians, who do not believe that this was Islamophobic.”

At this point in the video recording of the conversation, a woman’s silhouette moves into view and approaches Berkson; she apparently intends to stop him from talking. “It’s OK,” Hussein said, and Berkson went on: “In this particular case we have a work of art considered a treasure and masterpiece by scholars, painted by Muslim artists for a Muslim king that honors the Prophet —”

Hussein interrupted him. “You can stop.” Then: “Here’s what I’m going to tell you. If you share pedophilia in this school as an art, I’m happy for you to show the picture of our Prophet. But if you don’t do that, then you’re not going to disrespect our Prophet.” Hussein then launched into a long, rather confusing comparison involving Hitler. After all, he said, some people — some white Minnesotans, even — think Hitler was good. But that wouldn’t justify teaching a pro-Hitler class! “If you ask me right now, I’ll come back with a 26-page paper telling you why Hitler was good. That does not make it right.”

The Chronicle seems to be the only place that printed this quote, and I'm really curious why the audio/video was not released anywhere else.

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