(Religion News) The Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement Friday (Jan. 13), saying an art history instructor at Hamline University did not act with bigoted intent when she showed a 14th-century painting of the Prophet Muhammad in a class last semester.
The statement, issued as “the official position” of the national organization, counteracts remarks made by its Minnesota chapter’s executive director, who said the classroom viewing of the painting was Islamophobic. That’s also the view taken by university administrators who said showing the painting was “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic.”
The university canceled instructor Erika López Prater’s contract to teach another class in the spring semester after a student filed a complaint, engulfing the university in a firestorm over academic freedom and Islamic representational art.
