Claudia Kiburz, an American professor who taught English at Zayed University in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was fired for showing the controversial Muhammad cartoons as part of a discussion on freedom of expression, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Students in the class reported the discussion to school officials, and the news spread to parents, which led to the professor's dismissal. Kiburz's supervisor, Andrew Hirst, who is from the United Kingdom, was also removed because of the incident, but 7Days, a magazine based in UAE, reported that he has been reinstated.
The cartoons, which have caused controversy among Muslims, were originally published in Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper, last September. They have caused violent protests and demonstrations in the Middle East, according to the Chronicle.
The firing of Kiburz has incited debate on the AU campus.
AU recently held a panel about the cartoons entitled, "Danish Cartoons: Blasphemy or Free Speech?" Professor Mohammed Abu-Nimer of the School of International Service, who participated in the panel, said Kiburz should have put more thought into showing the cartoons in her classroom.
"She knew how explosive the situation was," Abu-Nimer said. "That was a high-risk mode of teaching to use knowing where she was."
Abu-Nimer said professors everywhere could talk about the cartoons and did not need the actual pictures to enhance the debate. If students wanted to see the cartoons for themselves, they could look on the Internet.
"There needs to be a level of sensitivity used when in the Muslim community," Abu-Nimer said.
According to Ivy Broder, interim provost, teachers at AU would not be fired for showing the cartoons in class.
"AU protects the academic freedom of its faculty," Broder said. "This alone would certainly not be something that would cause us to terminate a faculty member."
Apollo Gonzales, a senior in the School of Public Affairs, disagreed with Broder, saying the Dubai university was justified in its actions.
"She should have been fired because it is easy enough to talk about the cartoons without crossing that boundary and bringing in the images," Gonzales said. "It would be like a professor here lecturing about pornography and then bringing in pictures from Hustler magazine."
Lindsay Lenehan, a senior in the School of Communication, also said the cartoons should not have been shown.
"It is not okay for anyone to show them," Lenehan said. "The opinions about the cartoons are very centralized there, as opposed to here where there are so many different views."
College of Arts and Sciences Professor Mary Gray said the professor should not have shown the cartoons but supports the newspaper's right to publish them.
"Many publications engage in self-censorship to avoid offending on religious or other grounds, but that is a choice they should be free to make," she said. "Obviously, the protests that the cartoons have engendered come from deep-rooted grievances far beyond the publication of the cartoons"
