Hamline University's Shameful Attack on Education

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Onkar Ghate and Aaron Smith discuss the recent incident at Hamline University, where art history professor Erika López Prater was dismissed for showing her students a fourteenth-century painting of the prophet Mohammed. They analyze the administrators’ charge of “Islamophobia,” the issue of “academic freedom” in terms of which the controversy has been viewed, and how the aversion to teaching allegedly offensive topics is destroying higher education.
Among the topics covered:
• What happened at Hamline;
• Hamline's dishonest response to public criticism of their actions;
• The incident as an unfortunate sign of how universities are less willing to teach topics deemed as offensive;
• How diversity offices, far from helping students navigate controversial topics, cater to irrational worldviews;
• How the smear of “Islamophobia” destroys the distinction between rational and irrational criticism of Islam;
• Why religion, being openly irrational, receives a privileged treatment;
• Why suppressing controversial subjects is a disservice to any active-minded student;
• How the framing of “academic freedom” ignores that the government’s control of education makes it impossible to solve conflicts between academics and the administration;
• Government interference in education as a cause of increasing self-censorship.
The podcast was recorded on January 20, 2023.
0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:27 Incident at Hamline
0:07:59 Hamline’s dishonesty
0:12:59 Universities and ‘offensive’ topics
0:20:58 Diversity offices harmful impact
0:29:45 The smear of “Islamophobia”
0:36:20 Religion as privileged
0:39:17 Suppression and active-minded students
0:44:20 Government’s control of education
0:55:32 Government and self-censorship

[@vladimirrusinov1974]

Shunning Hamlin University's attitude in this situation is just and moral. Thanks for the video.

[@eduardorpg64]

We need to get the government out of education. Awesome video, Onkhar and Aaron!

[@SpacePatrollerLaser]

Is Hamline a government entity? It was not brought up in the vid. To my knowledge, this was a totally PRIVATE incident. The precursors to government interference start out as private actions. Implementing them privately is still evil because they amount to fraud, which was practiced by Hamline wholesale in the form of the lies used in the attempted cover-up. At no time was the government mentioned so any remarks about government here are gratuitous and, being irrelevant, distract from the discussion by virtue of being a non-sequetur: true but immaterial

[@benjaminwilson6487]

"If you're going to have a diversity office, shouldn't it help students navigate the fact that there *is* diversity on campus?" 22:24

[@SpacePatrollerLaser]

Here is the Cosmic Joke of "diversity". The diverisity mongers want "diversity" in everything skin color, ability or inability to recognize your own body parts, economic status whatever they can dream up next, EXCEPT ideas. In that they demand the kind of conformity of the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, theocratic Iran, Red China or Nazi Germany. If you say "Balck is White", "Less is more", War is Peacef", 2+3=5", Freedom is slavery" or "Ignorance is knowledge", they will hail you as wise. If you say that "1+1=2" or "A is A", they will burn you at the stake

[@Duciorci]

Great take on the timeline of the events! Hadn't heard about that

[@endpc5166]

Folks, this is not some radical or minority taboo, it's standard/orthodox (Sunni) Sharia: images of _all_ living animals are forbidden. It's important to know the _reason_ it's forbidden: it's because Muhammad, whom the Qur'an claims _speaks for Allah_ (Q 4:80), strenuously objected to such images because he thought the artist was imitating the life-giving power of God. He declared _"Whoever makes an image shall be required [on the Last Day] to breathe a spirit into it, but will never be able to do so."_ This is madness, of course, because artist is just trying to make something beautiful to look at. Yet this is why there are no pictures in mosques, just geometric designs on surfaces. Sharia also prohibits musical instruments (in Afghanistan they've all recently been destroyed) and prohibits dogs as pets, all because Muhammad hat𝜀d them. Remember this when you hear that Islam is compatible with your culture. It's highly antithetical to our Constitutional freedoms. In fact, Islam for 1300 years has tried to militarily destroy Western Civilization up to its defeat at the Battle of Vienna 1683.

[@rcansino4014]

You're spot on. Thank you.

[@ziemowitgowin4000]

0:19:00 So powerful!

[@rcansino4014]

Thanks for this interesting discussion. As Onkar says at 38:30 it’s privileging the irrational in its manifestation as religious dogma. EndPC has commented in this feed on the Islamic dimension of Hamline: mainstream (unreformed) Islam is incompatible with the Western political system and Western core values which are founded on rationality. Hamline is another example of the soothing of perceived Islamic sensibilities, itself a product of the cultural relativism that has gripped the Western mind and which is eroding its self-confidence and self-assertiveness. Peter Townsend sheds much light on this phenomenon in his well-researched and very readable book ‘Nothing To Do With Islam’, aptly subtitled ‘Investigating the West's Most Dangerous Blind Spot’.

[@chromaticnomadic]

Bored "Diversity officers" with no real tasks to fulfill..

[@williamhenry9705]

Such ninnies......