Hamline University President Fayneese Miller, who was criticized for her handling of a Muslim student’s complaint after a professor showed art in class that depicted the Prophet Muhammad, will retire next year.
Miller has been president of the St. Paul private liberal arts school since 2015.
Hamline’s full-time faculty in January urged Miller to resign over the student’s complaint, saying her reaction harmed the school’s reputation nationally.
“We are distressed that members of the administration have mishandled this issue and great harm has been done to the reputation of Minnesota’s oldest university,” read the statement, in part, which was approved by faculty on a 71-12 vote.
However, a Hamline administrator said it was “undeniably Islamophobic” for adjunct professor Erika López Prater to have shown the art in her class.
Miller herself in a staff email said “respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom.”
López Prater showed the 14th-century painting to her students as part of a lesson on Islamic art, after warning them beforehand and giving them an opportunity to opt out. In Islam, portraying the Prophet Muhammad has long been taboo for many, and a Muslim student in the class complained to the university.
Lawsuit followed
López Prater was not brought back for the spring semester, which led to widespread criticism from academics and free speech advocates. She is now suing the school for defamation and breach of contract.
Miller later released a statement on the controversy, saying Hamline made a “misstep” and that “usage of the term ‘Islamophobic’ was therefore flawed.”
During a press conference announcing her retirement Monday afternoon, Miller defended Hamline’s actions and said reporters have propagated a “false narrative” about how administration responded to the controversy.
“Hamline University believes in academic freedom, we believe in free speech,” she said. “Never has Hamline University ever violated anyone’s academic freedom. That is not who we are.”
She added: “No one was let go for sharing an image.”
Conflicting narratives
Public administration professor Jim Scheibel, who heads Hamline’s faculty council, said Monday that while faculty called for Miller’s resignation, the board of trustees “determined the future of the president.”
“Hamline has a great tradition and there were times certainly when President Miller contributed to it,” said Scheibel, a former St. Paul mayor. “But we need new leadership, particularly after the crisis.”
The executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Jaylani Hussein, supported the action Hamline took following the student complaint about López Prater’s class last fall, and condemned what CAIR sees as Miller’s forced retirement.
“We believe that her support for Muslim students and her stance against Islamophobia ultimately cost her job,” Hussein said in a press release.
However, the National Council on American-Islamic Relations previously said López Prater showing art depicting the Prophet Muhammad in her class was not Islamophobic. The group said professors who analyze images of the Prophet Muhammad for academic purposes are not the same as “Islamophobes who show such images to cause offense.”
Miller said during the press conference she would not characterize her decision to step down as a forced resignation. She said the primary reason is to spend more time with her family, who live in Vermont.
“I will acknowledge that we’ve had some trying times,” she said. “I got beat up in the media, and so you know, at some point, you have to look at that and go ‘is this right for the institution.’ ”
Miller, Hamline University’s first Black and second female president, spent decades working in academia before coming to Hamline in 2015. She is a social psychologist who helped found an ethnic studies program at Brown University and served as the dean of the college of education and social services at the University of Vermont.
The school’s retirement announcement was filled with praise for Miller, describing highlights of her tenure and how she had “created a reputation for Hamline as an institution that welcomes students from diverse backgrounds.” Several student groups previously defended her in a letter to the student newspaper.
Board of Trustees Chair Ellen Watters said Miller’s departure was not related to the Islamic art controversy and that her eight-year tenure is relatively long.
Miller officially retires from Hamline on June 30, 2024.
This report includes information from the Associated Press.
