As readers of the blog may know, Hamline University declined to renew Erica López Prater's instructor contract because she displayed Islamic Art containing images of Mohammed in her World Art class, and some students objected. López Prater sued, and on Friday Judge Katherine M. Menendez (D. Minn.) allowed her religious discrimination claim to go forward (López Prater v. Trustees of the Hamline Univ. of Minn.):
Ms. López Prater alleges two theories of religious discrimination: 1) discrimination because she is not Muslim, and 2) discrimination because she failed to conform to certain religious beliefs of others (i.e., that it is improper to view images of the Prophet Muhammad)…. Although the Court appreciates that Ms. López Prater alleges unusual and somewhat indirect theories for religious discrimination, it does not believe that novelty in this context equates to failure to state a claim. Given the lens applicable at this stage, where a plaintiffs' allegations are taken as true, dismissal is not appropriate.
Ms. López Prater may have difficulty proving her case at later stages, especially because demonstrating that Hamline would have treated her differently if she was Muslim seems very hard to establish. But the sole question before the Court at this stage is whether her allegations plausibly state a claim for relief, and Hamline bears the burden of dismissal….
Ms. López Prater maintains that Hamline would not have labeled the act of showing the images "Islamophobic" if she were Muslim. She also points to the temporal proximity between the uproar over her showing the images and Hamline's decision not to renew her contract as suggesting a discriminatory motive. Exactly two weeks after Ms. López Prater met with Dean Kostihova and was told that there was a large outcry within the Muslim Student Association and Muslim staff were threatening to resign, she was notified by the department head that the spring semester class she had been scheduled to teach was being cancelled and that her contract would not be renewed. Ms. López Prater responded to that email, suggesting that the change must be related to her showing images of the Prophet Muhammad in class. The department head did not deny this suggestion. The continued description of her conduct as "Islamophobic" by members of Hamline's administration suggests that it was a problem that Ms. López Prater did not conform to the belief that one should not view images of the Prophet Muhammad for any reason.
