I'm curious if the direction were themselves Muslim, as this was a pretty brash decision, or if it was out of misguided progressiveness, thinking they were protecting freedom of religion when they're instead breaking freedom of expression
Progressivism believes in significantly expanding the role of the state. Social housing, medicare4all, Title IX. It’s diametrically opposed to libertarianism.
The state has no role in this story. This is about a private university firing a private person.
"Progressivism arose during the Age of Enlightenment out of the belief that civility in Europe was improving due to the application of new empirical knowledge to the governance of society." according to Wikipedia
This also has nothing to do with freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is not the freedom to impose your religious beliefs upon other people, nor is it a right of preventing other people's speech offending you religiously. It merely means that you can practice your religion freely without being prevented from doing so.
> I'm curious if they were themselves Muslim, or if it was out of misguided progressiveness
You can satisfy your curiosity by reading the article.
> However, one student in class that day—the president of Hamline's Muslim Student Association—took offense, complaining first to the professor, and then to school administrators.
Overzealous religious sensitivity obviously vastly pre-dates the culture that you’re pretty clearly critiquing here. Please read the article instead of indulging in the culture wars.
what?! I just assume that people tend to defend their own religion more intensely, whatever it is. & I think that protecting everyone's right to religion is a good thing, just that here it went too far
Many christian denominations have issues with depiction of saints. Just because one of them doesn't shows how farcical the whole thing is and how haughty one's church acts over another. Plus the whole catholicism being "the chuch" thing.
Catholic orthodoxy is like "European right-wing" on the US political scale: i.e. not very. Catholic Church accumulated a significant amount of tradition and writings on top of the scriptures, so its take on the Bible itself is kind of like what C++20 standard is to K&R C. I mean, the Church is old; there are turning events in western history triggered by and named after disputes about the Church's adherence to the scriptures.
That's a very Protestant take on things, and one which many Catholics (and Eastern Orthodox too) would argue is deeply ahistorical – something which, from a Catholic/Orthodox viewpoint, Protestants do a lot – there is that famous line by John Henry Newman, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant"
While I was raised in a protestant-derivative religion, I also grew up in a deeply Catholic country, and most of my understanding of those aspects of history comes from the public education system - so I may be biased towards the "Protestant take on things", but I don't think it's that ahistorical or inaccurate - otherwise the schools I went to wouldn't be talking about this.
In many countries, the public school history curriculum is of dubious quality and prone to bias–a moment's searching will discover numerous of examples of this. The fact that the country has a Catholic supermajority doesn't necessarily mean its school curriculum could not have anti-Catholic bias, since some traditionally Catholic countries have a significant history of anti-clericalism, such as France and Mexico.
Your position could be summarised as "the New Testament came first and then Catholicism/Orthodoxy added all these other traditions on top of it". From the Catholic/Orthodox viewpoint, that's got things back to front: the Church and her Traditions came first, and then the Church decided to write some of those Traditions down, which became the books of the New Testament, and then the Church collectively decided which books to canonise as Scripture, and which to leave out. Then, well over 1000 years later, along comes Protestantism, claiming it is dropping the Traditions "added to" Scripture, and “going back” to "Scripture alone" (sola scriptura).
However, from the Catholic/Orthodox viewpoint, this whole idea of sola scriptura, or Scripture and Tradition as a clash rather than a harmony, was a historical novelty; and what the Protestant Reformers were actually doing, was just reading their own ideas into Scripture. Indeed, over the last few decades, some Protestant scholars have come around to acknowledge there is some truth in that allegation – witness the "New Perspective on Paul", supported by Protestant scholars such as N. T. Wright, which argues that Luther fundamentally misread Paul, by interpreting his ideas through the lens of late mediaeval controversies over indulgences/etc, rather than appreciating their (very different) original Jewish context – which is basically what Catholic and Orthodox scholars had been saying all along.
Thanks for elaborating. That's an interesting and somewhat new perspective to me (particularly about Luther being too strongly biased by the social/political controversies of his time), so I'm reducing my confidence in what I wrote in earlier comments, and I'll remember to dig deeper into the viewpoint of Catholic scholars at some point.
I wasn’t referring to images, but to all religious rules in general (fasting, marriage, relationships, worship rules, technology, rituals, calendars…whatever…). It’s a bad thing to mix religions with logic and especially science :-)
I would disagree and say that having various rules that you keep can improve quality of life substantially. Licentious people are generally not happy in the long term.
it's not that simple. people get mad not because some religious rules are not being followed, but because they got offended. being offended is dependent on the perceived intention of the offendant. so they must impose their religious rules on everybody to create a safe space for their ego.
Sure, if the course is taught in some madrasa (Islamic theological schools), yes, they can avoid images. Can this logic be extended to non-theological schools that talk about Islam? Does it mean that what one should teach must comport with Islamic theology?
Unless people are forced against their will to attend school, and this institution specifically, and this course or class specifically, with no option to not attend school, to not attend this institution, to not take this course or class - isn't showing islamic art history in an islamic art history class precisely what all those present have chosen to pay to receive?
Apparently they paid to receive that course, but were not happy with it:
> However, one student in class that day—the president of Hamline's Muslim Student Association—took offense, complaining first to the professor, and then to school administrators.
Then the paradox of tolerance [1] kicks in, and one offended guy forces everyone to comply (likely with silent support from other like-minded guys).
Is it really a paradox? If intolerant [1] societies become tolerant despite not only letting the intolerant speak, but with intolerance the dominant ideology, then surely a tolerant society can remain tolerant while allowing intolerant speech, because the arguments in favor of tolerance are so much more persuasive.
In clearer terms, if society has progressed from state A to state B while X was allowed, how can the paradox of tolerance then claim that, unless X is banned, society will inevitably go back from state B to state A? If X was such a strong driver towards state A, state B never would have been reached in the first place.
Unless of course this is cover for those that get to define what is intolerant [2] to act as censors and push the Overton window in whatever direction they please.
[1] 'Tolerant' or 'intolerant' on whatever axis you want.
[2] Is it intolerant to be inconsiderate of other religions? Or are those religions intolerant for insisting their taboos be upheld by others? What about describing other religions in terms that may lead to 'hate'? What if those descriptions are factual? When are you drawing attention to legitimate intersectional privilege that enables abuse and oppression, and when are you unfairly targeting a group based on protected characteristics?
responding to [2] depends. As a devout atheist I see all religions as silly mind play. I should be afforded the freedom of doing so just as religious believers treat me with derision. I live in a quickly fading christian country and couldnt be happier. Good riddance to bad religion.
[2] wasn't meant as a question, but as a demonstration that who is tolerant or intolerant can be, in some cases, entirely subjective. Apply some clever rhetoric to make your opponent the intolerant one, and you not only win the debate, but prohibit his view from even being discussed - otherwise, society itself will descend into intolerance!
It's pretty objective, in the sense how violent and non-violent is reasonably objective.
People who take significant action to have a certain point of view suppressed are intolerant towards it. People who dislike that point of view but restrain themselves and allow others have their despicable ways are tolerant. (And those who don't care are neither, but are considered tolerant by some.)
It's about as much a paradox as the problem with pacifism. Pacifism stops working once someone aggressive comes by. This is why every state, even the most democratic, has police, including riot police.
The problem is that universities strive, at least notionally, to look for what's been found objectively true. For instance, portraits and other figurative paintings exist in earlier Islamic art. This is an undeniable fact, supported by multiple evidence. But this is also considered offensive by some modern people who profess Islam. They don't want these images to be shown, talked about, taught in a university, or otherwise made known. These people are citizens enjoying all the same rights and protections as other students, who might want to learn these facts.
So a university is in a double-bind. If they assert their right to teach objective facts in a course dedicated to such facts, they will make many enemies within the Islamic community, and suffer the uproar from the "pro-tolerance" crowd, on campus and in media. If they step back and remove these offensive facts form the curriculum, they will suffer an uproar from the "pro-objectivity" crowd (which may have a large intersection with the "pro-tolerance" crowd, by the way). But they choose the latter, because this way they will make fewer enemies. and risk a smaller dip in popularity and grant money.
The very same mechanism of civil pressure which was successfully used for various things me and you (hopefully) consider good, like women suffrage and racial desegregation, can be used for purposed me and you (hopefully) find problematic. Most people value social peace over some tolerable concessions to those who feel strong about a particular issue. I don't see any way around it: the mechanism is value-agnostic, much like strong encryption or firearms.
While natural sciences (even biology) are currently enjoying an environment where the scientific truth is considered the most important concern, social sciences, to my mind, are in a situation closer to that from the times of Galileo or Socrates.
I disagree. Islamic art can be studied while still being sensitive to Islamic law.
You are trying to allude to free market systems to determine how a course evolves. Except there arent various forms of the same Islamic art class being offered at the school where a student can choose with money and choice which variation should be supported.
At some point, free market does not effeciently allow for the evolution of systems when choices are simply binary, like voting. In binary systems, participation and communication is key. And that is exactly what occurred here.
> Islamic art can be studied while still being sensitive to Islamic law.
Which version of Islam and which Islamic laws though?
I assume the point of showing the specific image in question, sourced from the Jami' al-tawarikh, was to point out that here was an historic and significant Islamic history text commissioned by an Islamic state that contained .. ( <gasp>, <shock>, <horror> ) an image of Muhammad.
This is what happens in history classes, I hope somewhere a similar class is being taught that sainted Catholic nuns once prepared and admistered abortifacients (substances used to terminate pregnancy) as an example of the changing nature of religuous views and morals.
The foundation of your worldview is more important than your position on a random topic.
And the privileged position of religion comes from a time where the punishment for not following the local approved worldview was anything up to a long torturous death, which didn’t tend to happen for other kinds of beliefs.
No, the founders did not want the Federal government to interfere with the religions of the states. States at the time of the revolution had and maintained after the Constitution was ratified such things as religious tests for holding office. It’s only after the 14th Amendment and the incorporation of the 1st that this began to apply to State governments as well.
I think I heard it in a podcast once, but I’ve forgotten which one and haven’t been able to track down the source again. The idea was basically this:
The first amendment of the constitution is written so that each part is dependent on the previous parts.
Religion is protected because religion is what you think and believe.
Next speech is protected. It’s listed after religion because what you say is determined by what you think.
Freedom of the press protects what you say widely.
Next the right to assemble is protected because what you write in the press may inspire groups to form to petition the government for change which is the final item.
I disagree that religion should be treated the same way innate qualities like sex or ethnicity are, but it seems clear that until recently, the control religion had over society meant it was rare for people to leave religions like they do now - so religion becomes a proxy for a group, and the group gets persecuted based on their religion.
When people in Northern Ireland burn flags, they’re burning the flag of the Irish Republic, but the people they say they hate are Catholics.
Because, for centuries, religious sects have spread the idea that beliefs cannot be questioned. Personally, I think this is obviously because if any religion is examined with even a mote of reasonableness and informed inquiry all the religious claims are clearly wrong and based on fairytale-and-wish-thinking.
Religious belief (faith) is different from normal belief. Normal beliefs are purely internal. The outside world is unaffected by your belief or disbelief in something.
Religious belief on the other hand does have external effects. Your belief / disbelief is directly perceived by God, and God takes actions based on your belief.
In other words, normal belief is a state, religious belief is an action. So, whereas challenging someones normal belief is an act of knowledge sharing, challenging a persons religious belief could get them struck by lightening.
> challenging a persons religious belief could get them struck by lightening.
It seems we should see large numbers of lightning strikes then. And as societies become more secular, the number of such strikes should be increasing; but I’m unaware of any such trend.
Only Islam get that privilege partly due to French magazine publisher bloody attack years ago and Palestinian guilt. The rest like Buddhism, Taoism, Catholic, Protestant, Sikhism, etc usually don't get much specialty treatment. Take Sikhism that require carrying a Sikh dagger and having long hair, I known many universities blatantly forbid it. The main reason is because a small minority of Muslim devotees tend to be very violent when it comes to their religion "honor". And many Westerners are scared of retaliations.
It obviously wasn’t islamophobic enough. What an inversion of meaning.
They should have just said “offensive and hurtful to Muslims” and left it at that. They can complain, but they don’t get to change the meaning of language.
It's pet peeve of mine to regularly declare in conversations that words don't mean anything anymore. Sometimes I am charitable and concede that they mean to the person speaking them whatever they are feeling.
The term "phobos" is from Ancient Greek, and has been an integral part of our language for at least 3,000 years. That's a lot more staying power than the recent 5-year trend.
The problem is that many interpretations of Islam (aiui) strictly forbid showing depictions of Muhammad. So I think the argument would be he's trying to force Muslims out of his class, or some such.
(To be clear, I still think an art history professor should be able to show whatever artwork they want.)
It something that offends a very large group of people with clear reasoning even if you disagree with the reasoning. I don’t understand why people find the need to poke that.
I kind of understand society can’t ban images of say owls because say the bla people find it offensive
But we do find it distasteful to refer to certain groups of people with names that THEY find offensive even when the majority of the globe don’t really get the offensive association
>It something that offends a very large group of people with clear reasoning even if you disagree with the reasoning. I don’t understand why people find the need to poke that.
This wasn't some sort of general education seminar that went out of its way to bring up a controversial issue. It was an Art History class. To suggest that an art history professor should be somehow constrained in showing historical art , to adults, in a college class because some people might find it offensive is frankly absurd. The fact that the college would choose to expel the art historian who showed this historical art in an art class rather than those who were offended because of their primitive religious beliefs is a perfect encapsulation of the intellectual rot that has infected "Western society".
I’m pretty sure if I randomly picked a decade over the last 4000 years and a culture the odds are fairly low to land on that. It’s disingenuous to suggest this is important to art class because simply there is nothing notable about the drawing, what is notable is the subject and the controversy.
At best an average art lecturer wants to make statements about censorship they can do it on their dime in their own medium. the worst is, let’s leave that.
You didn't read the article. It explains exactly why the professor chose this piece and how it fit into his class lesson. You don't need to speculate like this.
Oh, so like 2+2=5 now, because enough of people have repeated that phrase often enough that it's gained its own contextual meaning and thus is now a truth we should accept without questioning?
You're still saying like really absurd things that people on the Internet have been saying for 20 Years.
We're not talking about mathematics. we're talking about language something that's extremely Malleable. has always changed will always change and will always have people like you upset about it .
And by the way we just decided as a group that 1 = a single unit and doesn't mean 2.5 units
"Could lose accreditation" is a stretch -- all this article is doing is repackaging a press release saying that someone wrote a sternly worded letter. To an institution that was almost certainly already aware of what was happening, since I've seen this story in the news a few times already.
At that, the press release said they submitted it through the accreditor's website, which I have looked up[1], and which very explicitly says that "HLC does not: Accept complaints from third parties". Which suggests that this is very much a PR move by FIRE, and HLC's default reaction to it is going to be ignoring it unless FIRE is now actually representing someone involved.
(None of this is meant to imply that I think the college has done anything approaching the right thing in this case, from everything I've heard about the story...)
Its policy on complaints[0] states (emphasis mine):
HLC, *aware of the value of information from the public*, shall review complaints regarding a member institution’s ability to meet the Criteria for Accreditation or other HLC requirements in a timely, fair, and equitable manner. The complaint process is intended to address only those matters that suggest substantive non-compliance.
If a member of the public submits a complaint about a broader issue (the college not protecting academic freedom) and not a specific incident (this one), then it seems like HLC would treat it as information from the public, without requiring standing (as a party involved in a specific incident).
I donate to FIRE and support most of what they do but I disagree with their position here. I don't like that the professor got fired for this but as a private institution, Hamlin has their own right to mediate speech as they see fit. Go ahead and heap bad press on them and let the market sort it out.
Isn't the Higher Learning Commission (Hamline's accreditor) also private? Isn't it within their First Amendment rights to do this too? Why should the argument "it's okay because it's legal" apply to the university but not to the professor or the accreditor?
WTF? Hemline University claims to be a university in the Western tradition of universities and Western society in general. It can either fire the instructor but then ought to dissolve itself, or keep him and live on. It can't do both at the same time.
The first word of that post was not necessary, but the rest I agree with. In particular, the article layed out that they are bound to freedom of speech by the "TOS" of the sponsor.
Serves disrespectful orientalist “scholars” well to have their own corrupted ideologies used against them. Presuming to analyze and dissemble the “other” while it is only projection of their own misconceptions.
Welcome to hell. If you want to look at how this cultural clash between western modern civilisation and middle-eastern islamic one can go wrong, look at france. We’ve been at the forefront of this problem since the 1990s (because of our history with north africa), and we’re still struggling.
Muslims are sensitive to ascribing a graphical depiction to the prophet. And this sensitivity should be taken into consideration. We have taken such sensitivities when dealing with Jewish holidays and laws.
However, the consequences of being insensitive should be more rational than simply firing. Here is an Islamic Art class and I can assume that this is not the first time a photo of the Prophet was displayed. If no one complained before as loudly as a student did now, the professor cannot be faulted. Second, what goes into an academic curriculum is not to be determined by the student. So if a student does complain, it needs to be reviewed by someone other than the professor and be directed from an administrative level.
Lastly, this article is click bait. Prof fired, and complaint against the school was filed. Now there is speculation that the school can lose accreditation.
>And this sensitivity should be taken into consideration.
No, it absolutely shouldn't. Those aspiring to higher education should be the ones who consider the fact that a central part of higher education is being exposed to ideas, images, arguments and other material that they will very likely find offensive. If they decide that they lack the emotional and/or mental capacity to be exposed to things that may offend them, then college isn't for them, and they are free not to attend. No college should cater to the mentally and/or emotionally disabled by altering their curriculum out of fear that someone may be offended.
> Muslims are sensitive to ascribing a graphical depiction to the prophet. And this sensitivity should be taken into consideration.
It was. The professor, knowing these sensitivities, warned the class in advance. Despite the warning, the offended student chose to attend the lecture anyway. The professor, sensing trouble, contacted her department chair who acknowledged she did everything right. It was only once the Muslim Student Association became involved that the dean and DEI leadership decided to throw the professor under the bus in the name of academic virtue signalling.
There are many unfortunate parts of this sad affair. But certainly one is the alienation of allies who would otherwise be inclined toward cultural sensitivity had the university not taken such an extreme position. Although it may only be aspirational, the idea of proportional justice should undergird Western liberalism. This case shows the opposite is alive and well.
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[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 226 ms ] thread"Progressivism arose during the Age of Enlightenment out of the belief that civility in Europe was improving due to the application of new empirical knowledge to the governance of society." according to Wikipedia
[0] https://img.ifunny.co/images/e73e5a1bb4730d79965d1a4860878e5...
You can satisfy your curiosity by reading the article.
> However, one student in class that day—the president of Hamline's Muslim Student Association—took offense, complaining first to the professor, and then to school administrators.
That’s the problem with all religions that have (strict/ancient/silly/unsubstantiated) orthodox rules: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxy
Your position could be summarised as "the New Testament came first and then Catholicism/Orthodoxy added all these other traditions on top of it". From the Catholic/Orthodox viewpoint, that's got things back to front: the Church and her Traditions came first, and then the Church decided to write some of those Traditions down, which became the books of the New Testament, and then the Church collectively decided which books to canonise as Scripture, and which to leave out. Then, well over 1000 years later, along comes Protestantism, claiming it is dropping the Traditions "added to" Scripture, and “going back” to "Scripture alone" (sola scriptura).
However, from the Catholic/Orthodox viewpoint, this whole idea of sola scriptura, or Scripture and Tradition as a clash rather than a harmony, was a historical novelty; and what the Protestant Reformers were actually doing, was just reading their own ideas into Scripture. Indeed, over the last few decades, some Protestant scholars have come around to acknowledge there is some truth in that allegation – witness the "New Perspective on Paul", supported by Protestant scholars such as N. T. Wright, which argues that Luther fundamentally misread Paul, by interpreting his ideas through the lens of late mediaeval controversies over indulgences/etc, rather than appreciating their (very different) original Jewish context – which is basically what Catholic and Orthodox scholars had been saying all along.
This is in the article.
> However, one student in class that day—the president of Hamline's Muslim Student Association—took offense, complaining first to the professor, and then to school administrators.
Then the paradox of tolerance [1] kicks in, and one offended guy forces everyone to comply (likely with silent support from other like-minded guys).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
In clearer terms, if society has progressed from state A to state B while X was allowed, how can the paradox of tolerance then claim that, unless X is banned, society will inevitably go back from state B to state A? If X was such a strong driver towards state A, state B never would have been reached in the first place.
Unless of course this is cover for those that get to define what is intolerant [2] to act as censors and push the Overton window in whatever direction they please.
[1] 'Tolerant' or 'intolerant' on whatever axis you want.
[2] Is it intolerant to be inconsiderate of other religions? Or are those religions intolerant for insisting their taboos be upheld by others? What about describing other religions in terms that may lead to 'hate'? What if those descriptions are factual? When are you drawing attention to legitimate intersectional privilege that enables abuse and oppression, and when are you unfairly targeting a group based on protected characteristics?
People who take significant action to have a certain point of view suppressed are intolerant towards it. People who dislike that point of view but restrain themselves and allow others have their despicable ways are tolerant. (And those who don't care are neither, but are considered tolerant by some.)
The problem is that universities strive, at least notionally, to look for what's been found objectively true. For instance, portraits and other figurative paintings exist in earlier Islamic art. This is an undeniable fact, supported by multiple evidence. But this is also considered offensive by some modern people who profess Islam. They don't want these images to be shown, talked about, taught in a university, or otherwise made known. These people are citizens enjoying all the same rights and protections as other students, who might want to learn these facts.
So a university is in a double-bind. If they assert their right to teach objective facts in a course dedicated to such facts, they will make many enemies within the Islamic community, and suffer the uproar from the "pro-tolerance" crowd, on campus and in media. If they step back and remove these offensive facts form the curriculum, they will suffer an uproar from the "pro-objectivity" crowd (which may have a large intersection with the "pro-tolerance" crowd, by the way). But they choose the latter, because this way they will make fewer enemies. and risk a smaller dip in popularity and grant money.
The very same mechanism of civil pressure which was successfully used for various things me and you (hopefully) consider good, like women suffrage and racial desegregation, can be used for purposed me and you (hopefully) find problematic. Most people value social peace over some tolerable concessions to those who feel strong about a particular issue. I don't see any way around it: the mechanism is value-agnostic, much like strong encryption or firearms.
While natural sciences (even biology) are currently enjoying an environment where the scientific truth is considered the most important concern, social sciences, to my mind, are in a situation closer to that from the times of Galileo or Socrates.
[1] https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
You are trying to allude to free market systems to determine how a course evolves. Except there arent various forms of the same Islamic art class being offered at the school where a student can choose with money and choice which variation should be supported.
At some point, free market does not effeciently allow for the evolution of systems when choices are simply binary, like voting. In binary systems, participation and communication is key. And that is exactly what occurred here.
Which version of Islam and which Islamic laws though?
I assume the point of showing the specific image in question, sourced from the Jami' al-tawarikh, was to point out that here was an historic and significant Islamic history text commissioned by an Islamic state that contained .. ( <gasp>, <shock>, <horror> ) an image of Muhammad.
This is what happens in history classes, I hope somewhere a similar class is being taught that sainted Catholic nuns once prepared and admistered abortifacients (substances used to terminate pregnancy) as an example of the changing nature of religuous views and morals.
Absurd woke-ism strikes again!
On the contrary, it seems to be the opposite of woke-ism.
And the privileged position of religion comes from a time where the punishment for not following the local approved worldview was anything up to a long torturous death, which didn’t tend to happen for other kinds of beliefs.
The first amendment of the constitution is written so that each part is dependent on the previous parts.
Religion is protected because religion is what you think and believe.
Next speech is protected. It’s listed after religion because what you say is determined by what you think.
Freedom of the press protects what you say widely.
Next the right to assemble is protected because what you write in the press may inspire groups to form to petition the government for change which is the final item.
When people in Northern Ireland burn flags, they’re burning the flag of the Irish Republic, but the people they say they hate are Catholics.
Religious belief on the other hand does have external effects. Your belief / disbelief is directly perceived by God, and God takes actions based on your belief.
In other words, normal belief is a state, religious belief is an action. So, whereas challenging someones normal belief is an act of knowledge sharing, challenging a persons religious belief could get them struck by lightening.
It seems we should see large numbers of lightning strikes then. And as societies become more secular, the number of such strikes should be increasing; but I’m unaware of any such trend.
It obviously wasn’t islamophobic enough. What an inversion of meaning.
They should have just said “offensive and hurtful to Muslims” and left it at that. They can complain, but they don’t get to change the meaning of language.
(To be clear, I still think an art history professor should be able to show whatever artwork they want.)
I kind of understand society can’t ban images of say owls because say the bla people find it offensive But we do find it distasteful to refer to certain groups of people with names that THEY find offensive even when the majority of the globe don’t really get the offensive association
This wasn't some sort of general education seminar that went out of its way to bring up a controversial issue. It was an Art History class. To suggest that an art history professor should be somehow constrained in showing historical art , to adults, in a college class because some people might find it offensive is frankly absurd. The fact that the college would choose to expel the art historian who showed this historical art in an art class rather than those who were offended because of their primitive religious beliefs is a perfect encapsulation of the intellectual rot that has infected "Western society".
At best an average art lecturer wants to make statements about censorship they can do it on their dime in their own medium. the worst is, let’s leave that.
We're not talking about mathematics. we're talking about language something that's extremely Malleable. has always changed will always change and will always have people like you upset about it .
And by the way we just decided as a group that 1 = a single unit and doesn't mean 2.5 units
At that, the press release said they submitted it through the accreditor's website, which I have looked up[1], and which very explicitly says that "HLC does not: Accept complaints from third parties". Which suggests that this is very much a PR move by FIRE, and HLC's default reaction to it is going to be ignoring it unless FIRE is now actually representing someone involved.
(None of this is meant to imply that I think the college has done anything approaching the right thing in this case, from everything I've heard about the story...)
[1]: https://www.hlcommission.org/Students-Communities/complaints...
[0] https://www.hlcommission.org/Policies/complaints-and-other-i...
Good job on Hamline for doing the right thing.
>“Hamline teaches us it doesn’t matter the intent, the impact is what matters,” Huddleston said.[1]
You reap what you sow.
[1] https://hamlineoracle.com/10750/news/who-belongs/
However, the consequences of being insensitive should be more rational than simply firing. Here is an Islamic Art class and I can assume that this is not the first time a photo of the Prophet was displayed. If no one complained before as loudly as a student did now, the professor cannot be faulted. Second, what goes into an academic curriculum is not to be determined by the student. So if a student does complain, it needs to be reviewed by someone other than the professor and be directed from an administrative level.
Lastly, this article is click bait. Prof fired, and complaint against the school was filed. Now there is speculation that the school can lose accreditation.
No, it absolutely shouldn't. Those aspiring to higher education should be the ones who consider the fact that a central part of higher education is being exposed to ideas, images, arguments and other material that they will very likely find offensive. If they decide that they lack the emotional and/or mental capacity to be exposed to things that may offend them, then college isn't for them, and they are free not to attend. No college should cater to the mentally and/or emotionally disabled by altering their curriculum out of fear that someone may be offended.
It was. The professor, knowing these sensitivities, warned the class in advance. Despite the warning, the offended student chose to attend the lecture anyway. The professor, sensing trouble, contacted her department chair who acknowledged she did everything right. It was only once the Muslim Student Association became involved that the dean and DEI leadership decided to throw the professor under the bus in the name of academic virtue signalling.
There are many unfortunate parts of this sad affair. But certainly one is the alienation of allies who would otherwise be inclined toward cultural sensitivity had the university not taken such an extreme position. Although it may only be aspirational, the idea of proportional justice should undergird Western liberalism. This case shows the opposite is alive and well.