Hamline University is going through some things. After terminating an instructor of art history for showing a class artwork that offended some Muslim students, numerous scholars and advocacy groups have denounced the university's actions as a serious affront to academic freedom. FIRE has gone further an filed a complaint with an accreditation agency.
Part of what made the case particularly remarkable was the unusual degree of clarity about their priorities from the university leadership. Usually university presidents try not to be so explicit about what they are doing when they ride roughshod over academic freedom. But Hamline's president tells you how things are:
Our response to the classroom event does not disregard or minimize the importance of academic freedom. It does state that respect, decency, and appreciation of religious and other differences should supersede when we know that what we teach will cause harm.
