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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DULUTH, Minn. — One person was injured when a sightseeing ship struck the breakwater in the Duluth-Superior Harbor on Saturday night.

Authorities were called to the Wisconsin Entry just before 11 p.m. after initial reports said the Vista Star was against the breakwater but not taking on water, the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

One person was reported with non-life-threatening injuries, the sheriff’s office said. The U.S. Coast Guard transported the injured person to Loon’s Foot Landing in Superior, Wis., where the victim was picked up by an ambulance and brought to a Duluth hospital.

The Vista Star crew maneuvered the ship, which was listing to one side in 5-foot waves, off the breakwater. The St. Louis County Rescue Squad, Coast Guard and Duluth Fire Department escorted it back to the Minnesota Slip under its own power.

Several people were assessed for minor injuries at the Minnesota Slip.

Eighty-four people were aboard the ship, according to the sheriff’s office, for a special Sips on Superior cocktail cruise departing at 10:30 p.m. The Vista Star is the larger of the Vista Fleet’s two vessels, measuring 92 feet.

The St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident.

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Former employees of Rainbow Health, a local health care and social service provider, are demanding answers from the Board of Directors after the organization suddenly closed last week.

After more than 40 years of serving and advocating for the Twin Cities LGBTQ+ community, Rainbow Health informed some 80 employees on Thursday that it would close immediately and union members said Monday that little reasoning has been given since.

“None of us were prepared,” said Ash Tifa, the former legal services program coordinator for Rainbow Health, on Monday.

Workers, 60 of whom are union-represented, received an email Thursday morning about an all-staff meeting where just two hours later they were informed of the closure, according to a news release from Rainbow Health Workers Union, which is represented by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa.

During the all-staff meeting, Tifa said employees pressed for answers as to why the closure needed to happen that day. The only answer they were given was, “We can’t pay you past today,” Tifa said.

Just days before the announcement of the nonprofits’ closure, CEO Jeremy Hanson Willis resigned following a unanimous vote of no confidence, according to the union.

Leading up to the closure, employees had been calling for accountability and transparency, Tifa said, adding that “a pattern emerged” in regards to the organization’s executives being “unable to answer questions relating to our finances.”

Rainbow Health did not respond to requests for comment as of Monday afternoon, but the organization’s automated phone message said: “Due to insurmountable financial challenges, we can no longer sustain our operations.”

Community impact

Lee Start was meeting with a client during last Thursday’s emergency meeting.

“I learned a few minutes before 1 p.m. that I had until 5 p.m. to terminate services with almost 40 clients,” Start said Monday. “I had a client in the waiting room while staff was in the hall sobbing.”

Start, who worked for Rainbow Health as a psychotherapist since 2019, said the sudden closure is causing trauma to people who are already traumatized.

Rainbow Health’s roots in the Twin Cities date back to 1980 when volunteers launched the Minnesota AIDS Project, which focused on providing a support network and information for gay and bisexual men in the midst of the AIDS epidemic. It eventually grew to include a formalized referral network in the early 2000s and merged with Rainbow Health Initiative in 2018, briefly becoming JustUs Health before being renamed to Rainbow Health in 2021.

“Many of the clients we see, this is the only safe space and support they have,” Start said.

As a result, some of Rainbow Health’s former employees are providing pro-bono services like food and ride assistance to their clients while they sort through next steps, Start said.

Friday, the day after the closure, Tifa hosted a name-change clinic where more than 50 people showed up, said Start.

“There are thousands of people this is impacting and we demand and deserve answers,” they said. “Our clients deserve better than this.”

Next steps

In addition to answers, the union is demanding the employees be paid out PTO and the 30-day notice period they were never given, which Tifa said was stipulated in their contract.

The union is currently trying to reach the board to discuss its demands. The board, which said it would respond on Monday, has yet to reach out, Tifa said early Monday afternoon.

Uzoamaka McLaughlin, a former medical case manager coordinator with Rainbow Health, praised the union on Monday, saying “This platform has given us a voice. If it wasn’t for the union, I don’t know who would be talking on our behalf.”

Rainbow Health Workers voted to form their union in early 2022 due to alleged racial abuse and retaliatory firing practices, McLaughlin said.

According to a 2022 open letter to the community, Rainbow Health staffers wrote that they had witnessed instances of “tokenization and exploitation of Black staff by Rainbow Health leadership,” “potentially/perceived retaliatory employment termination for people who object to Rainbow Health leadership’s treatment of staff” and “hostile shut-down tactics creating a culture of non-transparency and fear amongst staff.”

McLaughlin went on to say the union had had its “best meeting ever” last December where the outgoing board recommended the new board members meet with the union in three months’ time. But the meeting never happened, McLaughlin said, despite repeated requests.

“We don’t even know who to channel our questions to,” McLaughlin said. “Who should take this fall?”

Caleb Hensin contributed to this story. 

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Funny how musical theater has evolved. It used to be that musicals would find success on the stage before being adapted into films — but now things more often move in the opposite direction. Films become Broadway musicals.

One of the more unlikely success stories among them is “Newsies.” The 1992 Disney musical is widely regarded as a cinematic bomb, only pulling in a fifth of its cost at the box office. Perhaps the timing just wasn’t right for a dance-filled musical about mostly-homeless young newspaper sellers pushing back against exploitative tycoons and lighting the fuse on a movement against child labor in America (which is making an unfortunate comeback).

But composer Alan Menken, lyricist Jack Feldman and playwright Harvey Fierstein reworked it as a stage musical that hit Broadway 20 years later and became a surprise hit, running for over two years. Now it’s been revived in a tremendously entertaining production from Bloomington’s Artistry Theater that should satisfy any summer cravings for high-energy dance numbers, passionate ballads and inspiring triumph-of-the-underdog stories.

Will Dusek, left, and Audrey Parker in Artistry Theater’s production of “Newsies,” Alan Menken, Jack Feldman and Harvey Fierstein’s musical about an early-20th-century strike by young newspaper sellers in New York City. The show runs through Aug. 11, 2024, at the Schneider Theater in Bloomington. (Dan Norman / Artistry Theater)

The skillfully rendered production keeps the physicality flying at you and the story clipping along at a pleasant pace. And it’s all sold with such enthusiasm by its 27-member cast and nine-piece pit orchestra that you’re unlikely to be able to resist its appeal.

Its story is based in fact, as young New York newspaper peddlers did go on strike in 1899, reacting to what was, in effect, a cut in their wages. In “Newsies,” the strike is the brainchild of a streetwise teen, Jack Kelly, and the story becomes front-page news courtesy of a savvy young woman reporter. As was customary with strikes of the era, the moneyed used violence as a tool, but this tale has some intriguing twists that lead to a considerably happier ending than most labor history of the era would offer.

Director Ben Bakken clearly loves the magic that an old-fashioned song-and-dance-driven musical can create, and choreographer Renee Guittar is clearly on the same page, as this “Newsies” is bursting with movement and overflowing with youthful vivacity. It’s all served well by Michaela Lochen’s versatile set, Kyia Britts’ lovely lighting (those skies above the Brooklyn Bridge are gorgeous), and the period costuming of Meghan Kent.

While all of Artistry’s leads shine brightly, Will Dusek commands the stage as our worldly protagonist, Jack. Following up a show-stealing turn as Frankie Valli in Chanhassen Dinner Theatres’ “Jersey Boys,” Dusek proves as skilled with a spirited dance number as he is belting a heart-on-his-sleeve ballad like “Santa Fe.”

Dusek’s Jack meets his match in more than one regard in Audrey Parker’s Katherine, the confident young journalist who becomes a love interest. Parker’s patter-driven “Watch What Happens” is a standout tune, as are Bri Graham’s torchy “That’s Rich” and Tyson Insixiengmai’s forlorn “Letter from the Refuge.”

Magnetically holding down the villain role is Charlie Clark as a devious Joseph Pulitzer (and we journalists have awards named after this guy?), while Pierce Brown and Maddox Tabalba provide believable inspiration for the strikers.

Yet this is a show in which the dance numbers make the most indelible impression, the waves of energy so relentless as to leave an audience exhausted, but with full hearts.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

Artistry Theater’s ‘Newsies’

When: Through Aug. 11

Where: Bloomington Center for the Arts, 1800 Old Shakopee Road W., Bloomington

Tickets: $56-$18, available at 952-563-8575 or artistrymn.org

Capsule: Everything you’d want in an old-fashioned, triumph-of-the-underdog musical.

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