THE INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART OFFERS RESOURCES PERTINENT TO THE INCIDENT AT HAMLINE UNIVERSITY, FALL 2022 - WINTER 2023

In fall 2022, a classroom incident at Hamline University became a major topic of discussion in academic circles and the press. The ICMA has compiled a collection of links pertaining to the situation, its aftermath, and its relevance to larger debate.

Preamble from Nina Rowe (ICMA President) and Steve Perkinson (ICMA Vice President)

As ICMA members will be aware, a classroom incident at Hamline University (St. Paul, MN) has flared into a major topic of discussion in the news, in professional circles, and online. As outsiders to the Hamline community, we do not have full access to the facts and specifics of the event itself and its aftermath. We are thus not in a position to weigh in on the actions of the key players.

But we do recognize that the material at the heart of the controversy falls squarely within the scholarly purview of the ICMA and that many of our colleagues will consider this incident a “teachable moment” for classroom instruction, curating, and reflection on professional facets of our field. We therefore provide below a curated selection of links representing key accounts of and responses to the incident, as well as relevant related discussions. These links were compiled by the IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) and Advocacy committees of the ICMA with our input.

As President and Vice President of the organization, we also offer the following observations, hoping that they can provide guidance for the ICMA community, made up of educators, scholars, museum professionals, and students observing the situation from afar. We underscore that other members of the ICMA leadership hold views different from ours. 

We have chosen to focus on three points in particular, with an emphasis on acknowledging our own positions in this situation and on what we might (individually and collectively) do to move us all toward a better future:

1. It is critical to honor the lived experience of the student who lodged the original complaint about what transpired in a classroom at Hamline, no matter what individual views might be regarding the complaint itself. Many ICMA members are figures of authority (professors, administrators, curators, etc.) in predominantly white educational and cultural institutions. It is incumbent upon scholars in positions of power to acknowledge that there are likely reasons why this student’s complaint resonated among others at Hamline, particularly students who identify as Black and/or Muslim, who were not in the class.

2. The image that came under question at Hamline is of historical importance and is relevant to the study of the history of Islamic art. Many scholars will consider it appropriate to include this image and others like it in classes that address that tradition. Some viewers may find the images objectionable, and we recommend that discussion of them be handled in class with care. As historians of medieval art, it is incumbent upon us to continuously refine our abilities to teach sensitive material in ethical ways, and to instill in our students an understanding of the issues at stake in such cases.

3. The erosion of the protections of tenure, combined with the increasing reliance on contingent and adjunct labor, poses a serious threat to higher education. As is widely known, the percentage of college and university instructors in tenure-track lines has sharply declined in recent years, while the number of instructors who are employed precariously on short-term contracts has risen substantially. All of those who work in academia—administrators; tenured, tenure-track, and adjunct professors; and independent scholars—are implicated in this system. It is our responsibility to advocate for solutions that could repair the damage caused by the recent shifts in employment patterns.

We encourage you to explore the links below with these observations in mind. We reiterate that individual members of the ICMA leadership hold varying opinions over which aspects of the Hamline case are most pertinent to debates over university life and culture in the US today. The articles and videos compiled by the ICMA’s IDEA and Advocacy committees represent a range of understandings and the views in any one or another of the links do not represent the opinions of all colleagues serving on these committees or of all members of the ICMA leadership. We note furthermore that this list is not exhaustive, and that the case continues to develop.

Please be aware: some of the resources below include images of the Prophet Muhammad. If you do not feel comfortable viewing these works, please be discerning about which links you click.

THE BACK STORY

Growing Frustration on Campus over the Hamline University administration – Students call out “Institutional Failings.” 

Kelly Holm, “Incidents of Racial Prejudice and Poor Representation Unfold on Campus,” Hamline Oracle (October 14, 2019) link.

Anika Besst and Eliza Hagstrom, “Student Protesting Recapped,” Hamline Oracle (September 15, 2022) link.

THE INCIDENT

Adjunct Professor Includes a Fourteenth-Century Image of the Prophet Muhammad as Centerpiece of a Visual Analysis Exercise

Christiane Gruber, “An Academic is Fired over a Medieval Painting of the Prophet Muhammad,” New Lines Magazine (December 22, 2022) link.

Vimal Patel, “A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She was Fired,” The New York Times (January 8, 2023) link.

THE RESPONSE

The Response: Academic Defense of Use of Image of Prophet Muhammad in Teaching

Christiane Gruber, “Islamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammad are an important piece of history – here’s why art historians teach them,” The Conversation (January 9, 2023) link.

Video Panel on “Hamline University: Islamophobia vs. Academic Freedom” (January 13, 2023) link (panelists include the professor at the center of the debate, Erika López Prater).

The Response: Focus on University Administration

David Perry, “The Staggering Mistake Hamline University Made is no Isolated Incident,” CNN.com (January 9, 2023) link.

Vimal Patel, “After Lecturer Sues, Hamline Walks Back its ‘Islamophobic’ Comments,” The New York Times (January 17, 2023) link.

“Statements from Hamline University President, Board of Directors,” (January 17, 2023) link.

The Response: Focus on Race and Religion

Kayla Renee Wheeler and Edward E. Curtis IV, “The Role of Blackness in the Hamline Islamic Art Controversy,” Religion News Service (January 12, 2023) link.

“CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) Announces Official Position,”  CAIR.com (January 13, 2023) link.

DISCUSSIONS RELEVANT TO THE INCIDENT FROM VARYING PERSPECTIVES

Muslim Views on Images of the Prophet Muhammad

Daniel Burke, “Why Images of Muhammad Offend Muslims,” CNN.com (May 4, 2015) link.

Amna Khalid, “Most of All, I Am Offended as a Muslim: On Hamline University’s shocking imposition of narrow religious orthodoxy in the classroom,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (December 29, 2022) link.

Interview with Omid Safi on “Hamline University Controversy,” CGTN (China Global Television Network) America (January 17, 2023) link.

Issues Facing Muslims and Somali Community in America

Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, “In Minneapolis, Somali-Americans Find Unwelcome Echoes of Strife at Home,” The New York Times (June 7, 2020) link.

Michael Greenwood, “Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ harmed health of Muslim Americans, study Finds,” Yale News (July 30, 2021) link.

Examples of Inclusive Classroom Practices:

The University of Chicago’s Inclusive Pedagogy site, link.

The Antiracist Pedagogy site created by Wheaton College (Massachusetts), link.

Harvard University’s Instructional Moves site (the “Building Community” and “Educating for Equity and Inclusion” pages are particularly pertinent here), link.

The Economics of Higher Education and the Challenge of Precarious Academic Employment 

Books

Christopher Newfield, The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), link. [Sample review: Sara E. Chinn, Radical Teacher 108 (2017), link (downloads as PDF).]

Kim Tolley (ed.), Professors in the Gig Economy: Unionizing Adjunct Faculty in America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), link. [Sample review: See Charles Peterson, “Serfs of Academe,” below.]

Herb Childress, The Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019), link. [Sample review: Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed (April 16, 2019), link; Sample review: Christopher John Stephens, Pop Matters (June 27, 2019), link.]

Articles/essays (in chronological order):

Jennifer Ruth, “Why are Faculty Complicit in Creating a Disposable Workforce?” Remaking the University (July 13, 2014), link.

Jennifer Ruth, “What Can We Do Now That Adjunct Sections are Written into Universities’ Fiscal Survival Strategies,” Remaking the University (July 22, 20140, link.

Carolyn Betensky, “‘Tenured Allies’ and the Normalization of Contingent Labor,” Academe (September/October 2017), link.

“How to Fix the Adjunct Crisis,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (May 30, 2018), link.

Kristen Edwards and Kim Tolley, “Do Unions Help Adjuncts? What Dozens of Collective Bargaining Agreements Can Tell Us,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 3, 2018), link.

Charles Peterson, “Serfs of Academe” (Review of recent books on the rising use of adjuncts in higher education), Portside (February 27, 2020), link.

Kevin Carey, “The Bleak Job Landscape of Adjunctopia for Ph.D.s,” The New York Times, (March 5, 2020), link.

Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, “American Higher Education’s Past Was Gilded, Not Golden,” Academe (Fall 2022), link.