But Hamline University, in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a private college; so they can do that, and they just did. Writing for CNN, David M. Perry, a journalist and academic, says (here),
“Last fall, Hamline University … hired Erika López Prater, an art history professor, on an adjunct basis to teach a global art history class.
“As reported in The New York Times, she warned students both verbally and in the syllabus that they would be shown sensitive images of holy figures such as the Buddha and Prophet Mohammed. For the class in question, she offered students a chance to leave the room without penalty before displaying and discussing an important image of the prophet made for and by Muslims in the 14th century. In other words, she performed with integrity and care.
“A student complained. López Prater shared the student’s complaint with her department head, and they co-wrote an apology to the student. Hamline’s administration informed López Prater that she would not be returning to campus to teach the following semester. The Times reported that David Everett, Hamline’s vice president for inclusive excellence, described what happened in a universitywide email as ‘undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic’ and that the school’s president, Fayneese S. Miller, co-signed an email saying that respect for Muslim students ‘should have superseded academic freedom.’”
That’s a college I wouldn’t attend or send my children to. Perry says, “no one has so far disputed the efforts López Prater says she took to allow students to make their own choice, following the best practices we have for teaching controversial material.” Experts have defended the work of art in question. Are we to fire professors because one student might be upset by the course content or materials, when they’ve been warned in advance what those are?
From his academic perch, he observes, “Academic freedom encompasses the right to teach controversial material and the right for students to complain about it. … Students are going to complain about professors. A classroom is a fraught space where, if the teaching is good and relevant, sometimes we’re going to encounter things that rock our worldview. The question is how the people with power respond in such moments.”
Yes, indeed. And in this case, the poobahs running Hamline sucked up to the offended student and expelled the professor. Good luck finding instructors in the future, with academic policies like that. But the issue isn’t limited to Hamline, and the problem isn’t sensitive students, it’s the front office. Perry continues,
… [I]f you’re in academia, the reason to worry about this story is not because of cancel culture, trigger warnings, PC run amok, wokeism or whatever other buzzword commentators are using to get you to think that kids these days aren’t resilient enough to learn. (I promise you; young people who have fought through a pandemic to get educated are plenty resilient.) It’s that the power dynamics on college campuses are happening everywhere, throughout our economy, and no one is safe when it’s easier for the bosses to wash their hands instead of getting down into the dirt with the rest of us doing the work.”
Well, that’s always been true. I could tell you stories from my own workplace experiences (although I didn’t run into this at any of the five universities, four public and one private, in three states, which I attended while pursuing multiple undergraduate majors, graduate school studies, and a law degree). But this story takes place against a backdrop of a shrinking youth cohort, more people questioning the value of a degree, and declining enrollments, which are putting pressure on college administrators to compete for students and cut instructional costs by hiring adjuncts — the academic world’s term for gig workers — instead of full-time, tenured professors.
You get what you pay for, and if you go to a college that sacrifices academic excellence to market economics, you’ll get a second-rate education and a tarnished degree. Perry called what Hamline University did to Erika Prater “a staggering mistake,” and I agree. From now on, it’ll be impossible to attend any class at that school without wondering who whitewashed the lectures, and for what reason. One can only hope other colleges, whether public or private, don’t follow their bad example.
This, by the way, is not about religion. It’s about open vs. closed minds, and tolerance vs. intolerance. Anyone who doesn’t understand that shouldn’t be running a college.
Least of all politicians with exclusionary ideological agendas, but that’s exactly what’s happening in Florida where GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis “appointed a group of hard-line conservative loyalists … into leadership positions at the New College of Florida, a move that comes as [he] plots a remake of the state’s higher education system.” (See story here.) And several years ago, a Missouri legislator tried to interfere with a Ph.D. student’s dissertation research (see story here).
The threats against academic freedom and quality teaching at the college level are never-ending; and if college administrators don’t stand up against them, then who can?