The board of directors at Hamline University has announced president Fayneese Miller’s upcoming retirement. She leaves in disgrace after kowtowing to Muslim students, as well as to the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and caving under the usual “Islamophobia” battering ram. In early February, Hamline University in Minnesota made the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s (FIRE) top ten list for worst colleges in America for the freedom speech, after a Hamline adjunct professor, Erika López Prater, was fired for showing a fourteenth-century painting of Muhammad to her class on Islamic art. A brouhaha ensued after a Muslim student lodged a complaint about this display, saying that the “artwork violated her religious beliefs.” The student added: “I’m 23 years old. I have never once seen an image of the prophet.” Miller “initially defended” the college’s decision to not renew Erika López Prater’s contract.
On January 11, CAIR-Minnesota also called a news conference, where the student explained that she “felt marginalized.” The executive director of CAIR-MN, Jaylani Hussein, surrounded at the podium by Muslim leaders and imams, discussed what he called the many forms of “Islamophobia” that Muslims must endure in America, from insults to physical attacks. Hussein then zeroed in on Hamline in the context of “Islamophobia” that can supposedly be found on campuses all over the country:
The recent incident at Hamline University where an art instructor displayed an image of our beloved Muhammad, may peace and blessings be upon him which we as Muslims consider sacrilegious and hate speech and hurtful to the Muslim community. Muslim scholars across the world over time have condemned the display of images of our beloved prophet Muhammed, may peace be upon him, and it is not only hateful and forbidden but it also goes to attack the core beliefs of our faith.
Hussein also discussed CAIR’s visit to Muslim students and its staff at Hamline, where he conducted a “diversity and inclusion presentation.” By now, these words have completely lost their meaning. Hussein also opportunistically zeroed in on what he called “the anti-blackness” Miller has allegedly faced at Hamline from her colleagues. Whenever Islamic supremacists rise up, they usually drag in other groups in an effort to disguise their agenda; instead of “Islamophobia” alone, one hears about anti-black racism, antisemitism or insults to other religions.
The outcome, as the Daily Mail reported it: “The university, bending to the demands of the Muslim association, called the incident ‘Islamophobic.'”
Yet after all this groveling, cowering, and obvious anxiety about offending Muslims, something odd happened. CAIR, soon after its visit to Hamline, issued a statement:
CAIR reaffirmed its longstanding policy of discouraging the display of images of the Prophet while also noting that the academic study of ancient paintings depicting him does not, by itself, constitute Islamophobia. CAIR also said that it has seen “no evidence” that former Hamline University professor Erika Lopez Prater had bigoted intent or engaged in Islamophobic conduct in the classroom.
CAIR’s followup was mysterious, given its initial response. Perhaps this stealth organization realized that it had moved too quickly and would draw too much adverse attention to its motives if it proceeded any further with the “Islamophobia” claims regarding Hamline. CAIR already knows it has the sympathies of the woke whenever the Muslim community claims to be offended, but to force the firing of a 23-year-old instructor who had no intention of hurting anyone’s feelings could have drawn unwanted attention to the organization’s real motives, that is, its imperative to impose Sharia tenets, as revealed in Hussein’s words: “the display of images of our beloved prophet Muhammed, may peace be upon him, and it is not only hateful and forbidden but it also goes to attack the core beliefs of our faith.”
Whatever the reason, this case shouldn’t come down to what CAIR or any Islamic lobby thinks and decides. The Sharia, despite what any of its adherents might think, does not supersede American law, or the law of any free country. The freedom of expression is the unalienable right of Americans, even as woke leaders are endeavoring to strip it away at the highest levels.
After an outcry and a lawsuit filed by Erika López Prater, the school backtracked. The majority of faculty members (72 of 90) also called for Miller’s resignation for harming the university’s reputation. Kudos to the faculty. Enough is enough.
The incident illustrated two important points: the level that Islamic supremacist groups will go to shove Sharia tents down the throats of Westerners, and the fact that America still has a fight left in it. The backtracking of Hamline was an affront and an embarrassment to its president, as well as to CAIR and its lackeys.
Miller is now set to retire in disgrace. Of course, those behind the scenes who supported the university’s treatment of López Prater remain comfortably anonymous.
The Hamline incident is an indicator of just how far Sharia tenets have already encroached upon Western society. Those who willingly allow the trampling of our freedoms are the enemies of freedom. They are the ones who deserve marginalization, not freedom supporters and truth tellers.
Too many Western leaders have wrongly and manipulatively branded criticism of and insults to Islam as “hate” in order to appease aggressive, supremacist lobbies, and are now behaving in the same way toward the transgender lobby.
John Allan says
Strange, that there never seems to be any uproar over illustrations of Jesus Christ … of which there are a substantial number.
Keith O says
Nor Buddha, nor any of the Hindu deities
Maybe they don’t want their cult linked to a fat dwarf?
somehistory says
‘ham line” university. Why did a mozlum …old enough to have heard the word “ham” and being mozlum, knowing she wasn’t allowed to eat the tasty dish…choose to attend?
mozlums, on their own, and via the corrupt c.a.i.r., like to whine about how they are “victims” and “marginalized,” and the objects of discrimination and hatred. But, instead of going where they might be “appreciated” for their devotion to the devil and his desires, they stick with the very places they despise and complain about how much they are mistreated.
There is one mozlum *reason* for this: they want to do as bo said he would do: “transform” the country and all for their false god and fake (perhaps imaginary creature) prophet. If they can gain enough power, produce mozlums by the hundreds of millions through invasion and birthrates, and influence enough people to vote them into important positions, they see a future “stan” in all non-mozlum ruled nations.
Their goal with all of this whining and complaining about a fake ‘phobia’ is to take over, and rule the world for their father, the one who told the first lie (and many since), satan the devil.
so many people…like this woman who fired the professor and now has decided to resign effective next year…are idiots and cowards. Put a woman in a headscarf wrapped tightly around her face, bring in someone from c.a.i.r. and no amount of being in the *right* matters….the scarf and the threats from c.a.i.r. are going to get their filthy way.
But, only for a “little while longer.” Then “the wicked one will be no more.”
The “sowing” is in full swing, but soon, the time for “harvesting” will come.
As all farmers, and farmers daughters, know, one naturally follows the other.
JimJFox says
She found thehard waythat being WOKE is not al it’s cracked up to be. Excellent, now put more pressure on other academic cesspools of Wokeness.
Westman says
Where is this great declaration by Allah or Muhammad that they, unlike Muhammad’s followers can never be pictured with a face? Is this a cleric’s amplification of Muhammad’s claim that an angel said he won’t appear in a house with a picture or a dog?
Muslims claim their God Allah is the Christian’s Old Testament God. Islam copied, to be consistent, much of the Old Testament prohibitions such as forbidding the consumption of pork. Yet, depite this convenient claim there is no Muslim outcry when seeing a painting of the Christian Old Testament God on the Sistine Chapel ceiling or on a wall.
Like many things in Islam, it’s inconsistent that Allah-God can be pictured yet Muhammad cannot. To the outside observers, that makes Muhammad more revered than Allah in Islamic culture. And that puts the validity of Islam in question in the minds of those observers.
One wonders:
Is it possible, except for the brutishness that Islam displays in many locations where it has control, the Capitalist West is better off with the believers holding tight to an Islam which ties up their life and makes them intellectually non-competitive in a modern world?
somehistory says
“Yet, depite this convenient claim there is no Muslim outcry when seeing a painting of the Christian Old Testament God on the Sistine Chapel ceiling or on a wall.”
Great point.
Alan Knight says
More evidence, as if any were needed, of the Unconditional Surrender of U.S. universities to Satanic Islamic propaganda!
When is the U.S. university system going to stop GROVELLING to Mudslimes?
OLD GUY says
They all have accepted large donations from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other islamic countries, and want to keep the cash flowing in.
mea says
muhammad` was illiterate; therefore, his handlers plagiarized the three of the four actual religions – the code Hammurabi while bastardizing the feudal order… and, muhammad, knowing only what his handlers told him, was none the wiser.
isn’t it something that a [faux] religion accusing everyone of blaspheme is the 1 and only [faux] group that originates through third party plagiarism – heresy – blasphemy – bastardization of 3 actual religions and 2 political models can be supported by normal people, as if there were a muhammadan religion.
Jim says
Well, it is nice to see that somewhere in my state the universities stood up to sharia fanatics. Not all Muslims are so bad as CAIR, but they should back our constitutional right to free speech. The left used to believe in free speech, now only their speech should be free. And Muslim free speech, of course.
FYI says
Would the muslims be Ok with pictures of BURAQ,muhammed’s mode of transport when he flew to Jerusalem?
BURAQ:A flying donkey with a woman’s face and a
peacock tail.
Like ..like.. THAT doesn’t ridicule muhammed?
You can see pictures of muhammed{from islamic sources}::look what he is riding on,flying around up in the clouds on his magical flying donkey,
BURAQ