San Francisco State Univ. Investigating Professor For Showing Image of Muhammad in Class

From the Chronicle of Larger Training (Emma Pettit):

Maziar Behrooz, an affiliate professor of historical past at San Francisco State College, doesn’t but know what a instructing resolution he made may cost a little him.

Within the fall of 2022, Behrooz was instructing the historical past of the Islamic world between 500 and 1700 and confirmed a drawing of the Prophet Muhammad. He is taught the course, and the picture, for years. One pupil, a religious Muslim, strongly objected, exterior of sophistication. His important level, Behrooz instructed The Chronicle, was that it isn’t permissible for a picture of the Prophet Muhammad to be proven in any form or kind.

“That is the primary time that this has occurred,” Behrooz stated. “I used to be not ready for any person to be offended, in a secular college, speaking about historical past reasonably than faith.”

Behrooz stated he instructed the coed that, because the professor, he’s the one who decides what’s proven in school. The scholar then complained to Behrooz’s division chair, who broached the difficulty with the professor, in line with Behrooz. He stated he defined to his chair that the coed’s view shouldn’t be uniform amongst all Muslims. The kind of drawing he reveals in school will be purchased at markets in Tehran close to holy shrines. Many Shiite Muslims have such drawings on partitions of their houses, stated Behrooz, who was born in Tehran and has written books on Iran’s political historical past.

The scholar additionally apparently complained to “authorities greater up” on the college, in line with Behrooz. The professor stated the establishment’s workplace of Fairness Packages & Compliance knowledgeable him in March that it will examine the incident and requested him to attend a Zoom assembly.

The Basis for Particular person Rights and Expression wrote at present to SFSU arguing that even the investigation itself tends to relax tutorial freedom; it additionally has a weblog put up concerning the case.