TheFIRE.org: "San Francisco State Refuses to End Investigation of Professor..."

From Sabrina Conza's 4-12-23 TheFIRE.org article entitled "San Francisco State Refuses to End Investigation of Professor for Showing a Drawing of the Prophet Muhammad to His History of the Islamic World Class":

San Francisco State University claims it cannot drop its investigation of a history professor who showed a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in class, but says it will attempt to conclude the investigation swiftly. FIRE and SFSU’s faculty academic freedom committee have criticized the investigation into the professor’s First Amendment-protected academic speech. SFSU must immediately end its investigation.

Last week, FIRE wrote SFSU after news broke of the university’s investigation of professor Maziar Behrooz for showing a drawing of Muhammad while teaching a class on the history of the Islamic world last fall. We criticized SFSU for violating Behrooz’s academic freedom right to determine what pedagogically relevant materials to use in his course. The university quickly responded the same day, claiming that because the university had already begun investigating, it had “limited ability to dismiss” the investigation.

FIRE responded Monday, reiterating our concern for academic freedom at the university and explaining that it cannot continue violating someone’s rights just because an investigation has already started. The university responded within two hours with a campus-wide statement by President Lynn Mahoney that addressed its violation of Behrooz’s rights as well as protesters’ disruption of a recent student-organized event.

In the statement, SFSU committed to swiftly “address the concerns raised by all involved in this complaint” and blamed the “systemwide antidiscrimination policies” for its investigation, but did not say it would end its investigation of Behrooz. If the California State University system’s policies are to blame for the university’s abysmal handling of faculty academic freedom, FIRE would welcome the opportunity to help evaluate those policies. In the meantime, SFSU’s violation of Behrooz’s First Amendment rights is ongoing, further chilling his and other faculty members’ speech with each passing day. This investigation is unacceptable — and unconstitutional — at a public university.

To read the entire article, click HERE.