Hamline University president will RETIRE after Prophet Muhammad controversy where art professor who showed image in class was fired

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The president of Hamline University will retire months after a scandal involving a professor who showed images of the Prophet Muhammad in an art history class.

President Fayneese Miller initially defended the small school in Minnesota's decision not to renew the contract of adjunct professor Erika Lopez Prater who had shown students the Muslim prophet - after providing them with a warning.

But the school finally backtracked after widespread criticism and a lawsuit filed by the professor. 

Previously, leaders at Hamline said 71 of 92 faculty members who attended a meeting in January voted to call on Miller to resign immediately. 

They said they had lost faith in Miller because of her handling of an objection lodged by a Muslim student who said seeing the artwork violated her religious beliefs.

It was announced Monday that Hamline University President Fayneese Miller would retire in 2024

The Monday email announcing Dr. Miller's 2024 retirement did not make mention of the controversy.

'Hamline is forever grateful for Dr. Miller's tireless and dedicated service,' wrote Ellen Watters, the chairwoman of the university's board of trustees, who also called Miller's tenure' innovative and transformational.'

In October, adjunct professor Prater showed an online class an image of the Prophet Muhammad as part of an art history class. 

She warned the students watching virtually what she planned to do, and gave them ample warning to look away from the image if they were so inclined.

In some - but not all - Islamic sects, it is forbidden to look at the image of the prophet. 

After the class, Aram Wedatalla - a student who is also the president of the university's Muslim association - complained. 

Wedatalla, who spearheaded the campaign to get Lopez Prater fired, chose to remain online in the class.

Professor Erika Lopez Prater sued the university for failing to renew her contract following the Prophet Muhammad incident

Afterward, she and others promptly complained to school officials that the image 'blindsided' her and made her feel marginalized.

'I'm 23 years old. I have never once seen an image of the prophet,' she said in a conference streamed live on CAIR-MN's Facebook page, adding that she felt marginalized.

'It just breaks my heart that I have to stand here to tell people that something is Islamophobic and something actually hurts all of us, not only me.'

Prater, who'd been hired that semester for the first time and was due to return for the spring semester, was shown the door. 

The university, bending to the demands of the Muslim association, called the incident 'Islamophobic'. 

It sparked uproar among other Muslims and professors across the country, who said the school had stifled academic freedom. 

One Muslim professor accused the school of advancing an 'extreme' Islamist view that is only held by a small number of people. 

The school dug its heels in initially, saying it wanted to protect its Muslim students and make them feel heard before eventually retracting a statement that labeled Prater's actions Islamophobic. 

Aram Wedatalla, the president of the university's Muslim association who spearheaded the campaign to get Lopez Prater fired, chose to remain online in the class

Miller will not officially retire until 2024. Hamline is forever grateful for Dr. Miller's tireless and dedicated service,' wrote Ellen Watters, the chairwoman of the university's board of trustees, who also called Miller's tenure' innovative and transformational

When Prater broke her silence, she said: 'In my syllabus, I did note that I would be showing both representational and non representational images of holy figures such as the Prophet Muhammad and Jesus Christ and Buddha. 

'Of course, in an art history classroom, images are the primary source documents that we use as evidence in order to learn about diverse cultures and thinking and attitudes.

'I spent a couple minutes explaining to students, before I showed the images. I told my students if they didn't feel comfortable engaging visually, they were free to do what made most sense to them. 

'I tried to empower them to walk away from the video portion of the online classroom, or do what kind of made most sense to them. 

Aram Wedatalla complained to the school, claiming she'd been 'blindsided' by the image of the Prophet Muhammad despite Professor Prater giving them multiple warnings that she intended to show it

Hamline University's Old Main building in St. Paul, Minnesota 

'I'm not a mind reader. My discussion in my class was fact based and on explaining the beginnings of Islam itself.

'All of the images that I used were very respectful, they were meant to be instructional and also referential in their original historical contexts.' 

Professor Prater added that the student said her warnings 'didn't matter.' 

'She had some pretty strong feelings that she expressed to me. But one of them that perhaps gets to the heart of the matter was she thought the warnings that I had provided to the class didn't even matter, because she believed that images of the Prophet Muhammad should never be shown full stop.' 

In her lawsuit, Prater alleged that Hamline subjected her to religious discrimination and defamation, and damaged her professional and personal reputation.