A nonpartisan nonprofit organization is calling on Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, to be stripped of its accreditation after an adjunct professor was dismissed after displaying an image of Muhammad during an art history class.
"We were as outraged as everybody else when we heard what was going on at Hamline," Alex Morey, director of campus rights advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told Fox News Digital. "This is an exceptionally bad articulation of academic freedom. There's absolutely no reason that an art history professor shouldn't be able to show a historical masterpiece in class."
Erika López Prater, a former adjunct art history professor at Hamline University, was reportedly fired last month after a student complained about historical images of the founder of Islam in her art history course. She issued a syllabus warning students that the class would contain images of religious figures, including Muhammad and the Buddha, and students were told they could contact her with any concerns about the course material, according a report from the New York Times.
Prater also reportedly warned students that a painting containing an image of Muhammad was going to be displayed a few minutes ahead of time, giving anyone who might be offended by such imagery an opportunity to leave the classroom.
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FIRE has appealed to the Higher Learning Commission, an institutional accreditor that has historically accredited post-secondary education institutions in the central U.S., to strip Hamline University of its accreditation after the Muhammad controversy.
"Certainly colleges and universities all over the country are recognizing that there are certain populations in their colleges or universities that have been historically underserved or underrepresented, and they're trying to take action to correct what they feel should be corrected," said Morey. "That has to stop at a line where you're crossing you're crossing the line into other people's rights."
"In the case of private schools like Hamlin, where they're making First Amendment-type promises, they are committing to not affect institutional punishment on people who say things that some would consider hate speech. We've got a student who says that seeing a picture of 14th-century masterpiece of the prophet Mohammed in her art class is both hate speech and offensive speech, but that kind of stuff is protected under our laws."
Despite the multiple warnings, a senior student in the class later complained to administrators about the Muhammad image and picked up support from Muslim students who were not in the class, resulting in Prater not being welcomed back to the school and setting off national controversy surrounding academic freedom.
Hamline University doubled-down on their position, according to a statement from university president Faynesse Miller that was sent to Fox News Digital.
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"Hamline University is now under attack from forces outside our campus, I am taking this opportunity to comment upon, and in several important instances, correct the record regarding critical aspects of this incident — both as reported in the press, and as shared by those who have been enjoined in the conversation about academic freedom," said Miller.
Miller went on to say that media coverage did not fairly portray the adjunct professor's departure, saying "the decision not to offer her another class was made at the unit level and in no way reflects on her ability to adequately teach the class."
"Fueled by commentary not well-informed on the particulars of this situation, we now find ourselves at the heart of a purported stand-off between academic freedom and equity. It has escalated to the point where I, members of my executive staff, other campus staff and, most sadly, one of our students now receive daily threats of violence."
"I also note that Hamline is an independent university still closely affiliated with the United Methodist Church, and its foundational principles inscribed in the oft-repeated words on our campus of John Wesley: ‘To do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.’ We at Hamline live by these words," Miller wrote.
"To do all the good you can means, in part, minimizing harm. That is what has informed our decisions thus far and will continue to inform them in the future. We hope you understand and respect the values guiding our efforts," she added.
The United Methodist Church has lately been breaking apart globally over issues regarding sexuality and church government.
Fox News' Timothy Nerozzi contributed to this report.
