Being a #woke president of a #woke college should be easier than this but then, not so much. The identity politics totem can turn on you at any moment, which seems to be what happened to Hamline University college President Dr. Fayneese Miller.
Hamline University faculty on Tuesday overwhelmingly called for college President Fayneese Miller to resign, saying they “no longer have faith” in her ability to lead the institution after administrators “mishandled” a controversy over Islamic art and academic freedom. …
The call for Miller’s resignation comes at a tense time for the St. Paul private university, which drew international attention after it decided not to renew the contract of an art instructor who showed images of the Prophet Muhammad in class.
The “educator” is alleged to have warned the delicate snowflakes in attendance that she was about to display relevant historical images of the prophet (Muhammad, not Obama). However, according to the offended Muslim, having to say it means she should not have shown it.
During an online art class in October, adjunct instructor Erika López Prater showed students two centuries-old artworks that depicted the prophet receiving a revelation from the Angel Gabriel that would later form the basis for the Qur’an.
One student in her class, Aram Wedatalla, president of the Muslim Student Association, contacted administrators and told them she was offended and that the instructor’s “trigger warning” was proof she shouldn’t have shown the images.
So, the trigger warning is not for the audience. Did you get that? If you have to say trigger warning, you should stop there. Seems a bit anti-climactic at that point, yes? I am about to show you something that may disturb some of you. Wait, no, I’m not.
Can we teach this to #woke grade school groomers pretending to be public school teachers?
Oh, and there has been a ‘liberal’ outpouring of support for Erika López Pratero and the defense of academic freedom and free speech.
That’s a head-scratcher. There isn’t much of either at the majority of such institutions. These might also be some of the same people who wished the two jihadis who wanted to shoot up Pam Geller’s Draw Mohammad Day event had made it inside (instead of getting gunned down in the parking lot by a duty officer). Then or their ideological ancestors.
Geller’s event was full of depictions of the prophet (Muhammad, not Obama).
Fellow instructors and groups promoting academic freedom largely rallied around López Prater, saying she had done more than most professors to prepare students for the images and to allow them to avoid seeing them.
Local and national Muslim groups offered differing opinions. Some said the school had to act to protect a student whose faith had been offended, while others said the university’s decision to describe the incident as Islamophobic ignored diversity of thought within Islam.
Hey Google, show me results for college faculty defending the religious freedom of Christians. Oh, look, a donut?
See how confusing this can all be? One moment a picture of Mohammad earns you a Fatwa from the Intellectual leaders of Wokeistan calling for your professional head, then you turn around and Boom! (sorry, not boom), it is protected expression, and the College President should take a walk for getting her cultural Marxism signals crossed.
No one is more surprised than President Fayneese Miller.
“Like all organizations, sometimes we misstep.”
“In the interest of hearing from and supporting our Muslim students, language was used that does not reflect our sentiments on academic freedom,” the pair wrote. “Based on all that we have learned, we have determined that our usage of the term ‘Islamophobic’ was therefore flawed.
Or was it?