Drawing Muhammed On U.S. College Campuses

The defenders of free speech on campus are out in force. Far-left members of congress like Ilhan Omar and Jamaal Bowman defend the right of agitators to yell for the genocide of Jews and destruction of the Jewish State as a matter of “uncomfortable speech” that should be allowed. Lawyers debate what crosses the line when calling for killing a group of people generally as being protected speech in public spaces but similar language used as directed speech at individuals and/or what could be considered an immediate call for violence, which would be prohibited speech.

*Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was spotted smiling at the anti-Israel encampment at Columbia University. (Photo: Reuters)*

One would imagine the free speech advocates on sensitive topics therefore easily standing alongside students drawing the Islamic prophet Mohammed on placards around campus, and most definitely, showing Mohammed in art classes, much the way paintings and statues of Jesus, Moses and David are discussed.

But the opposite has been the case.

Professors are being fired or intimidated to not show artwork with Muhammed. In Minnesota, Erika López Prater was fired from her position at Hamline University for showing a 14th-century painting depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a lesson on Islamic art. A student complained that she was upset and that it was blasphemous to show a depiction of the Islamic prophet and got the school to fire the professor. The professor had zero malicious intent and was simply reviewing artwork of religious figures but was nonetheless terminated.

The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo often lampoons religions and has made cartoons of the Islamic prophet as well. Jihadi radicals were incensed when their prophet was the subject matter, and shot up the company’s offices in 2015. The Islamic killers then shot up a kosher supermarket which had nothing to do with the magazine, simply to kill Jews.

A couple of months later in 2015, Pamela Geller held a “Draw Muhammed contest” in Texas, and two Muslim extremists shot up the event but were themselves killed. Both the Geller and Charlie Hebdo events were lampooning religion and Islam specifically, but covered under American and French ideals of free speech.

It will be an interesting spectacle to watch campuses with anti-Israel protests have counter-protests with Mohammed featured prominently on their placards with such statements like “Would Muhammed endorse Hamas’s rape of women?” and “What would Muhammed say about Hamas’s shooting the elderly?” Will Ilhan Omar rise to the defense of actual peace advocates the way she defends supporters of genocide?