An American professor teaching in the United Arab Emirates was fired this month after she showed her students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that have infuriated Muslims around the world, local newspapers reported.
Claudia Kiburz, who taught English at Zayed University, a women’s institution in Dubai, shared the cartoons with her students as part of a class discussion about freedom of expression, the news reports said.
The cartoons originally appeared in a Danish newspaper last September, and they have since sparked violent demonstrations in many parts of the Muslim world.
After Ms. Kiburz showed the cartoons, one of her students complained to the university administration, the local news accounts said, and word of the case spread quickly, angering many parents. The chancellor of Zayed University, Sheik Nahyan bin Mubarak Al-Nahyan, who is also the Emirates’ minister of education, fired Ms. Kiburz, saying that her actions had “nothing to do with the freedom of expression,” the news reports said. Ms. Kiburz’s supervisor, Andrew Hirst, who heads the university’s English Language Center, was also fired.
“Despite the freedom of expression and tolerance that we have in our country and all academic institutions, the professor of English at Zayed University has no right to behave like this,” Sheik Nahyan said in a written statement that was published in local newspapers. “We can never accept any offenses against Islam, or any of its teachings and noble values.”
According to the university’s catalog, Ms. Kiburz holds a master’s in education from the State University of New York at Albany.
Neither she nor Mr. Hirst, who is British, could be reached for comment despite repeated attempts over several days. The university’s provost, who was initially described as the official responding to reporters’ inquiries, did not answer repeated requests for comment.
A friend of Ms. Kiburz’s, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the dispute, said in an e-mail message that the professor preferred to remain silent until she had had a chance to tie up her affairs in the United Arab Emirates and leave the country.
A magazine based in the emirates, 7Days, reported that Zayed University was considering instituting sensitivity-training sessions for foreign professors.
http://chronicle.com Section: International Volume 52, Issue 25, Page A41