Art scholar settles lawsuit after losing job for showing image of Prophet Muhammad

Case was ‘resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties,’ attorney says

An adjunct art instructor who sued Hamline University after she faced backlash for showing a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad settled her lawsuit this week.

The details of the settlement between art scholar Erika López Prater and the private university are sealed, but some noted it as a win.

“While the terms are sealed, it’s another reminder that censoring faculty will cost you,” the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression responded on X.

Meanwhile, Prater’s lawyer David Redden told the Associated Press “the matter was resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties.”

Prater filed the lawsuit in 2023 after she showed a historical depiction of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in an art history class, The College Fix reported at the time. Many Muslims object to visual representations of religious figures such as Muhammad, believing them to be a form of idolatry.

“A student complained about the image’s inclusion in the course and led efforts to press administrators for a response,” Christiane Gruber, a professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan, wrote in an essay for New Lines Magazine at the time.

“After that, the university’s associate vice president of inclusive excellence (AVPIE) declared the classroom exercise ‘undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic,’” Gruber wrote.

One of the paintings (pictured) that Prater showed was a depiction of Muhammad with a veil and halo from a 15th century manuscript, now preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, according to Gruber.

Prater later said her teaching contract was not renewed. In her lawsuit, she accused the university of defamation, “emotional distress,” and “violations of the Minnesota Whistleblower Act,” The Fix reported.

“Hamline engaged in conduct toward López Prater that was extreme and outrageous,” her attorneys argued. This included “intentionally and publicly denouncing López Prater, a professor at an institution of higher learning, as Islamophobic and engaging in an ‘act of intolerance.’”

School officials also “maximiz[ed] her emotional distress by announcing her termination before her last day of class, and assisting and/or facilitating her further public defamation and humiliation,” which caused her “severe emotional distress and physical manifestations of the same,” according to the lawsuit.

In a 2023 interview with FIRE, Prater defended her actions. She said professors should be challenging students “in ways that are sometimes uncomfortable” because doing so can open their minds to new ideas.

Professor Erika López Prater, an adjunct professor who was nonrenewed by @HamlineU for exercising her right to academic freedom, explains the importance of challenging students as a pedagogical tool in the classroom. pic.twitter.com/5HwntagWoT

— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) January 17, 2023