Hamline University has agreed to settle the religious discrimination lawsuit brought by an art history instructor who lost her job after showing paintings of the Prophet Muhammad during an October 2022 class.
The tentative deal was reached Monday night after a 12-hour settlement conference, according to U.S. District Court records. The terms are not public.
Attorneys for Erika López Prater and the private St. Paul university were instructed to finalize the settlement in the next 60 days or ask the court for more time.
López Prater’s showing of two ancient works of art over videoconference offended a Muslim student, who believes the Prophet should not be visually depicted.
University leaders largely took the student’s side, with one calling the decision “disrespectful and Islamophobic,” and López Prater was not allowed to teach the following semester.
Those moves sparked an outcry from academics across the country and led to Hamline hosting a fall 2023 symposium on free speech, diversity and academic freedom. Then-President Fayneese Miller, who has since retired, said Hamline made a “misstep” when it called the instructor’s actions Islamophobic.
López Prater sued Hamline in January 2023.
In September, U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez dismissed some of the claims but allowed the case to proceed on religious discrimination. The judge found that López Prater plausibly alleged that Hamline took action against her “because she was not Muslim or did not conform to the religious beliefs held by some that viewing images of the Prophet Muhammad is forbidden.”
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