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The Rez of the Story

“Academic vs. Religious Freedom”



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Chief Joseph of the Nez Pierce is reported to have once said, “Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself – and I will obey every law or submit to its penalty.”

Taken from THE WEEK I found a story that is just a bit troubling among many equally troubling stories and reportings on offer this week. Particularly disconcerting this week is the headline; “Education: Academic vs. religious freedom.”

“Erica Lopez Prater, an adjunct professor at Hamline University in ST. Paul, Minn., knew she was stepping on sensitive ground when she showed her art history class a 14th-century painting of the Prophet Muhammad”, said Vimal Patel in The New York Times. “Since many Muslims consider it blasphemous to depict Islam’s founder, Prater warned in the syllabus that the famous image would be shown. When the class arrived, she repeated the warning and said students were free to leave. Then she “showed the image — and lost her teaching gig.” A Muslim student complained to the administrators, and was backed by other Muslim students who called the incident “an attack on their religion.” The response was swift. A top administrator called Prater’s actions “Islamophobic,” while Hamlin’s students’ need to “feel safe” outweighed academic freedom. So Prater lost her job.”

“This is what happens “when 7th-century and 21st-century illiberalism come together in a gnarly repressive concoction,” said Bobby Miller in the National Review. The submission of Hamlin’s “woke” administrators to the demands of offended students is shameful. They should understand that “student’s sensitivities do not get to trump the freedom of inquiry that is essential to the mission of the academy.” If respecting students “means not offending their responsibilities,” then “few classrooms in the social studies and the humanities will be safe,” said Keith E. Whittington in The Dispatch. With “basic principles of academic freedom” increasingly under attack, Hamline has reached a new low with its willingness to toss aside its “core academic mission for the sake of political correctness.”

It’s not just conservatives who should be alarmed, said Jill Filipovic in Slate. Many progressives are understandably protective of Muslims, “who are undeniably mistreated” in the U.S. But resisting “religious domination in what should be secular spaces is a core liberal value.” The Hamline debacle is only one instance in “a larger body of troubling moves to cater to the authoritarian impulses of religious tyrants.” In public schools and universities, Christian fundamentalists are banning books, “imposing a gender ideology that comes from their particular religious culture,” and demanding that science classes that teach evolution give equal time to “biblical mythology.” In the U.S., no secular public institution should ever worry about blasphemy and no college classroom should be “a safe place.”

And so the conversation and debate about our education systems continues and will continue on into the future as long as our ideas about “what ought to be” stay dynamic and do not stagnate. The quickest way to destroy our education system is to hide change and deny new ideas.

It is entirely workable to teach our children “about” religions and their respective belief systems but to force our children to adopt a specific religious ideology in the public sector where public tax-payer dollars are used would be tantamount to craziness. The confusion and outcry about what religion is the “right” religion to be taught is an impossibility and an exercise in futility.

And now you know the Rez of the story.

Doksha

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