Hamline video reveals painting of Prophet Muhammad was visible to students before trigger warning
January 27, 2023
Minutes into her October 6 online lecture on art history, Erika López Prater, an adjunct professor at Hamline University, warned her class what was coming.
“The next two slides that I am going to show do contain figurative depictions of the Prophet Muhammad,” she said, according to a video obtained by the Hamline Oracle and Sahan Journal. “So if that is something that you don’t want to look at, I just wanted to give you that heads-up, and I will let you know when the slides have passed.”
As López Prater gave that warning, however, a painting of the Prophet was already visible on the Google Meet screen. The class typically met in person, but on October 6 it was held online.
López Prater was displaying a PowerPoint presentation that showed a large panel on the right, as well as a column to the left that displayed her next few slides at a smaller size. An artistic depiction of the Prophet Muhammad was visible in one of the slides in this column.
That image, in thumbnail form, appeared on the screen for two minutes before López Prater offered those words of caution—a “trigger warning,” as it’s sometimes called in classrooms.
This new information about the order of events in the virtual art history class contradicts local and national media reports. On January 8, for example, The New York Times reported that in addition to warnings in her syllabus, López Prater “prepped students, telling them that in a few minutes, the painting would be displayed, in case anyone wanted to leave. Then Dr. López Prater showed the image — and lost her teaching gig.” That article brought international attention to a dispute playing out at a small liberal arts college in St. Paul.
The video, however, makes clear that the depiction was on screen, in thumbnail form, for approximately two minutes before López Prater started her oral warnings.
The Hamline story has become a lightning-rod national debate about academic freedom. After a student, Aram Wedatalla, complained to administrators about seeing the painting in class, Hamline did not renew López Prater’s contract to teach in the spring. That move sparked an outcry from academic-freedom advocates across the country.
The story has also exposed divisions within the Muslim community: While the Minnesota chapter for the Council of American-Islamic Relations described the classroom incident as Islamophobic, the national CAIR organization took the rare step of issuing a statement in disagreement.
Sahan Journal showed a portion of the video to David Redden, a lawyer for López Prater. After university administrators called her Islamophobic and declined to renew her teaching contract, López Prater sued Hamline. Her suit filed January 18 in Ramsey County District Court alleges defamation, breach of contract, and religious discrimination, among other claims.
Redden stated that displaying the preview slide was inadvertent. “The video is no defense to Hamline University’s actions as outlined in Dr. López Prater’s complaint and has no effect on the claims alleged in Dr. López Prater’s complaint,” Redden said. “Notably, Aram Wedatalla did not complain to Dr. López Prater about seeing a thumbnail view of the painting, and we are unaware of her ever suggesting that this was the basis of her complaint.”
Over email, López Prater said she hoped to speak for this story, but she did not provide a comment before deadline.
In an interview this week, Aram Wedatalla and Pearl Buabeng, both students who attended the art history class, said they did not recall seeing the thumbnail image.
“This is another trauma on top of the trauma because of how she chose to just put the picture up there,” said Wedatalla, who is the president of Hamline’s Muslim Student Association.
Buabeng, who identifies as Christian, grew up in Ghana, where she had many Muslim family members and friends and learned that Muslims should not be shown depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, she said. She took the world art class hoping to see artistic representations of her identity.
“So for a professor to do something like that, and knowing from the background that you are not supposed to do that, and then claim to give us a space to leave but truly did not offer that opportunity, that is heartbreaking,” Buabeng added.
Recording a lecture
The October 6 video takes the form of a cropped screen recording of the art history lecture held on Google Meet. A student in the class recorded the video on their laptop as a way to save the lecture for later viewing; the student didn’t intend to pay attention to the lecture in real time.
The Hamline Oracle obtained the video in November and published an article on December 6 about the incident and email communication that followed. This week, Hamline Oracle staff learned of inaccuracies in their reporting about how the depictions were shown in class. The Hamline Oracle and Sahan Journal teamed up to correct the record and co-publish this story. We also spoke with students who were present in class that day, and heard fresh accounts of why they felt disturbed by the lecture.
Hamline administration declined to comment, citing pending litigation. Hamline’s Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Marcela Kostihová, also said she could not comment specifically on the video or the situation due to active litigation.
However, Kostihová added, “The public version of the events in the class has been inaccurate.”
A technical glitch leaves multiple images on screen
From the beginning of the video, which begins right before López Prater begins her lecture in class, three presentation slides are seen on the left of the Microsoft PowerPoint.
In PowerPoint’s presentation setting, viewers in a classroom or audience will see a main image that fills up the whole screen. But in the editing view, multiple slides appear on screen at once: the main image; and, in this case, three slides in a sidebar to the left.
Around the 1:50 mark, López Prater begins her warning. She explains that she will be showing depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, and that some students may not want to look. She tells students she will let them know when those slides have passed.
“I am showing you this image for a reason,” she continues as she prepares students to view the slide. “There is this common thinking that Islam completely forbids outright any figurative depictions, or any depictions, of holy personages. And while many Islamic cultures do strongly frown on this practice, I would like to remind you that there is no one monolithic Islamic culture.”
However, the artwork is already on screen in the sidebar.
At the 3:50 mark, López Prater attempts to advance to the next slide, a map, which she describes as a “buffer slide,” and then to a slide with an image of the Prophet Muhammad.
She then begins describing the painting of the Prophet Muhammad receiving a revelation from the Angel Gabriel. The painting, from the year 1307, was part of a manuscript commissioned by a Sunni Muslim king in Iran.
However, López Prater’s introductory slide, which shows Dome of the Rock, a 7th century Islamic shrine in Jerusalem, continues to take up most of the screen. A student informs her that they cannot see the slides at 4:16 on the recording timeline.
At around four-and-a-half minutes into the video, López Prater condenses the carousel of future slides on the left so they are much smaller, and the main image takes up a larger portion of the screen. At this point, for the first time, a depiction of Prophet Muhammad appears as the main slide.
Redden, López Prater’s lawyer, said the video demonstrates that López Prater had shown the thumbnail image accidentally. “The video shows that Dr. López Prater had her PowerPoint presentation open but not in presentation mode,” he said. “As a result, the first of the two paintings showing an image of the Prophet Muhammad was visible in a thumbnail on the lower left side of the screen at the beginning of class. As the video makes plain, this was inadvertent. The video also makes plain that Dr. López Prater did not know the students were seeing a thumbnail view of the painting.”
Hamline Religion Professor Mark Berkson has not seen the video, but has discussed with López Prater what happened in the class. He also defended her actions through a commentary in The Oracle.
“If the image was seen, in some way…then that is an unfortunate occurrence. But that was not intentional,” Berkson told The Oracle. “However, that is not the major issue that was brought up, because the students are saying, as I understand it, that these images should never be shown in a classroom and that the very showing of them is Islamophobic.”
Christopher Proczko, a Minneapolis attorney with Sapientia Law Group who specializes in media law and is not involved in the case, said he did not think the new information would affect López Prater’s defamation claim. (Proczko added that he could not comment on the breach of contract and religious discrimination charges.)
Regardless, he said, it might be difficult to prove defamation on grounds of being publicly labeled Islamophobic. Proczko added that courts across the U.S. have rejected some claims that may resemble López Prater’s. For example, “calling somebody a white supremacist—that’s an opinion that cannot be defamation for which a plaintiff can recover damages,” he said.
How students experienced it
Wedatalla, the student who raised the concern, recalled that the first half of class that day involved going over upcoming midterm exams and the study guide. She knew that day’s lecture would focus on Islamic art; she was looking forward to it.
While reviewing her midterm notes, she heard the professor describe a “trigger warning.”
“How can someone give a trigger warning to something so beautiful and peaceful?” she recalled thinking. “So now I want to know what she’s going to show. I was just honestly curious. I wanted to know what in my beautiful religion could need a trigger warning to be shown.”
Buabeng said she, too, grew more attentive as López Prater described a “trigger warning.” When she saw the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, her thoughts immediately went to Wedatalla, who she knew should not see the painting. “My first thought was to make sure that my friend was okay,” she said.
When Wedatalla saw it was a representation of the Prophet Muhammad, she immediately felt “traumatized,” she said. She videocalled her mother in disbelief. She could feel herself “breaking down,” she said. Her mother could see her shaking and crying, and stayed on the phone with Wedatalla until she could get to a friend.
Wedatalla, who is from Sudan, described herself as “not Westernized whatsoever.” That means she has a deep respect for teachers, she said, so she waited until after class to speak up.
But when she did speak up, she did not feel that López Prater listened to her. “She basically dismissed my feelings, my values, and where I stand as a Black Muslim student,” Wedatalla said. “It literally broke my heart into pieces.”
Do content warnings matter?
López Prater also included a warning about religious imagery in her syllabus: a written overview of the material to be covered over the course of the semester. The course, she explained, would include “representational and non-representational depictions of holy figures (for example, the Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ, and the Buddha).”
In the syllabus, López Prater requested that students who had religious concerns about the visual content contact her in advance.
“I aim to affirm students of all religious observances and beliefs in the content of the course,” López Prater wrote in her syllabus.
Wedatalla and Buabeng both said they read the 11-page syllabus. Wedatalla said she did not recall seeing the warning about religious imagery.
“As college students, we’re not going to recall everything from the syllabus,” she said. “Sometimes we just read the important parts of the syllabus.”
The syllabus shows that a discussion of Islamic Art and Iberia was scheduled for October 4. However, due to a combination of illness and technical issues, López Prater canceled one session, causing subsequent courses to be delayed by one class period, Redden said.
One student who was in the class, Rosella Stewart, who said she identifies as agnostic, told The Oracle and Sahan Journal that López Prater gave warnings for multiple days before showing the depictions and was aware there were students who did not feel comfortable participating.
Stewart attended the October 6 lecture, and said she didn’t really grasp how other students responded until a club meeting later on.
“Multiple people expressed deep rage, sadness, and pain over the incident,” Stewart explained in an email. “It cannot be denied how jarring it was for many of my peers to have seen that image, but at the same time, I cannot understand why students did not leave the lecture when invited to do so. It was an online class, so it is possible the professor’s warnings were not heard in time that day.”
For Wedatalla and Buabeng, the warnings from López Prater were not sufficient to justify showing artwork of the Prophet Muhammad.
Wedatalla saw the warnings as evidence that López Prater knew she should not be showing the depictions in the first place. Wedatalla questioned what would have been different if she had heeded the warnings, and reached out to López Prater in advance—especially given how she felt when she did approach the professor.
Buabeng agreed that the warnings had not helped.
“Whatever she put in the syllabus, that should not have given her a right to traumatize my friend in this way,” she said.
Wedatalla stressed that she had nothing against López Prater. “Islam teaches us to forgive and move on,” she said. “She is always welcome to show up at our community gatherings to learn more from us and learn more about Islam.”
The controversy has caused months of internal turmoil at Hamline. As students returned to class this week, faculty voted overwhelmingly to ask Fayneese S. Miller, the university’s president, for her resignation. Student leaders penned a letter in Miller’s support. But only the board of trustees can make a decision about Miller’s fate.
The trustees have said they are “actively involved” in reviewing the university’s policies and responses to this situation. But they have not responded to multiple requests to clarify what steps they may be taking. In a letter published Thursday night in The Hamline Oracle, Miller indicated she intends to stay.
This was written in collaboration with Sahan Journal and The Oracle.
Common Sense • Feb 8, 2023 at 10:13 am
Is this supposed to be a story? All of this for a thumbnail image? Seriously, student reporters, do a better job. Both of the students you quoted from even admitted that they didn’t see the thumbnail image, and yet they say that it was “heartbreaking” for them to later realize there was a thumbnail of the image. Come on. That doesn’t even make sense.
This whole fiasco has been a farce from start to finish, and yet the students and the administrators seem intent on prolonging it via one ridiculous revelation after another. Just stop. Admit you were 100% wrong and move on. Stop doubling down on this nonsense.
Gender Desk • Feb 6, 2023 at 11:20 pm
It’s nice to be concerned about whether some African women students are going to be damaged by a thumbnail image. But today Feb. 6 is the UN sponsored “International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation”. If you look at the charts in the Wikipedia article, around half of pre-teen girls go through FGM in both Somalia and Sudan. Does Hamline or CAIR-MN have anything to say about that?
Jonah • Feb 3, 2023 at 2:32 pm
There is surely a good, nuanced discussion to be had about the value of showing artistic depictions of the Prophet in the context of history classes and the appropriate accommodations for people who do not want to see them, if teachers do decide to show such images.
Sadly, that seems to largely be absent.
You have the usual group of Islamophobic people online, declaring that an incident at a single small religious school represents the peril of creeping Sharia domination of the USA and supposed failings of Islam itself.
You have people like “Fed Up” in the comments below, who helpfully explains to a Palestinian-American professor emerita of art history that she has no idea about the issues involved here and that her opinion is basically worthless.
You have people like the Minnesota branch of CAIR, which, in direct opposition to the national organization, declared that any image of Muhammad is an expression of hatred, thus not only affirming that it is completely unnecessary to determine whether the professor in question was actually motivated by hatred, but also saying that people such as Omid Safi or Shahzia Sikander, to say nothing of the artists who created the images in the first place, are expressing their hatred of Islam.
You have people like a speaker invited to the university, who when confronted with the multiplicity of perspectives on images of the Prophet within Islam, confidently declared that supporting showing images of the Prophet was like teaching a class saying that Hitler was good. Showing a religious image created by religious Muslims for religious purposes is the same as a lauding one of the greatest genocides of human history. Something to ponder, no doubt.
You have people like the dean who explained that showing art of the Prophet is equivalent to insulting someone with a racial slur. Art created to praise Islam is the same as words created to demean and disparage others. That is certainly an innovative moral philosophy.
RMcN • Jan 29, 2023 at 6:17 pm
“Wedatalla and Buabeng both said they read the 11-page syllabus. Wedatalla said she did not recall seeing the warning about religious imagery.
“As college students, we’re not going to recall everything from the syllabus,” she said. “Sometimes we just read the important parts of the syllabus.”
These comments illuminate something I have been puzzled by. To be clear: I am enormously sympathetic to the students who have faced racism, Islamaphobia, and a total lack of helpfulness from Hamline to this point (no halal food? Really?) Nor do they deserve the torrent of abuse and threats from random people on the Internet I know they are getting.
At the same time, I have been puzzled as to why the student did not raise a concern earlier, either from the syllabus or in the announcements in previous classes.
Well, here we have it: she wasn’t paying attention.
And it’s true that students don’t always pay attention, and it can be embarassing to admit! Students DO read the syllabus for classes when theyare concerned about their performance and view the class as high value. But perhaps a business major in her senior semester didn’t think of an intro-level art class as demanding that level of attention.
As a higher ed professor with 25 years of experience, I know that it’s hard for students to admit any level of responsibility in conflicts like this. Especially if they have experiences of bias, they are (rightly) concerned that any admission of “guilt” will be used to dismiss their case or worse: punish them.
Yet I can’t help but think this could have been de-escalated if Hamline had a better discussion about syllabi and what they mean. That wouldn’t solve the problems of relying on adjuncts, of Islamaphobic incidents on campus, or the other factors at play. Yet spelling out the two-way street responsibilities of a syllabus, going over it carefully is a useful practice. (And11 page syllabi are the result of university administration risk management–perhaps that should be discussed, too.)
Another useful practice is giving students and faculty alike room to be imperfect. If the student had felt freer to admit she hadn’t paid close attention,perhaps she wouldn’t have felt the need to condemn trigger warnings as a sign of intent to do harm. But it oesn’t sound like Hamline gave her much confidence that an admission like that wouldn’t be used against her. And the “gotcha” nature of this headline suggests that Hamline administration is presenting a minor technology issue as evidence that justifies their overreaction, when in fact the affected students didn’t even see the image then. The professor did nothing ethically wrong; a tech glitch is hardly evidence of Islamaphobia.
Professors have technology issues. Students don’t always pay close attention to classes they perceive as easy or less important to their degrees. There should be room for everyone to admit these realities without the drastic response from Hamline administration.
BT • Jan 29, 2023 at 12:54 pm
From my perspective, the revelation that a small thumbnail preview was visible on the student’s screen at the beginning of class does not matter.
Instructors are not expected to provide a trigger warning in advance of showing or discussing images–in this case, it was offered as a courtesy to students since the instructor was aware that images of the prophet have been at the center of controversy in recent years. Had she presented the image in the course of the lecture, without any preamble, the professor would still have been teaching properly. Faculty should listen to student objections, they should do their best to treat all students with sensitivity and respect. Addressing students as strong adults, capable of viewing images and reading texts in an academic context–even when the ideas presented are challenging to the students’ received beliefs–IS respecting the students.
Non-expert • Jan 29, 2023 at 3:54 am
Clearly, some Hamline students were not touched by the “masrerpieces of Islamic art” they were shown in the classroom, and I don’t blame them for that. There could be after all some truth in what I learned in the school that in Islamic art figurative painting was underdeveloped and it was the artistic expression through the geometric form that flourished.
Perhaps part of the confusion between the students, almost existential in some of them, was created because someone, under the authority of being an expert, presented these two paintings as masterpieces, intstead of critically contrasing them to the geometric Islamic art, or to the work of European figurative painters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, ot Titian.
Fan of Islamic art • Jan 29, 2023 at 1:44 pm
You’re mistaken. Figural Islamic painting was a highly refined and developed art. Yes, it looks unlike Western painting, but that’s because it follows a different set of aesthetic standards that were no less consciously cultivated. The Court of Gayumars, for example, is a true masterpiece, dazzling in all respects (don’t take my word for it; look it up!).
Aida Audeh, Professor Emeritus of Art History • Jan 29, 2023 at 1:50 pm
The lesson of the day, as I understand, it was looking at depiction and expression in art of the middle ages in eastern and western culture. The instructor had discussed Byzantine depictions of Christian narratives and on this day in class was shifting to the narratives of Islam. In art history the focus is on historical developments as they occur, attempting to understand why and how they occur, in the context of their period and their particular culture. It would be out of time/place to contrast the works shown to those of European painters of the High Renaissance in Italy (those artists you named) with development of Islamic art in the middle ages.
Aida Audeh, Professor Emeritus of Art History • Jan 27, 2023 at 6:02 pm
I read this article and noted its revelation that a thumbnail image of one of the two works of art in question was visible while the instructor worked out her presentation’s technical issues. I can tell you from experience teaching Art History for more than 20 years (19.5 years at HU and 5 years before that in grad school as a TA and instructor of record) that one of the primary ways Art Historians (including myself) test students is through image identification. That is why you often saw my students at Hamline with flashcards in which they had the image on one side of the card and the identification information (name of artist if known, title, period-culture, date within a range for that period-culture) on the back of the flashcard. They would practice reviewing these flashcards alone and/or with a partner for 3-4 weeks to master the IDs on the exam each month. It is a test for students exactly because it is not easy to recall an image, to identify it, to recognize what it is depicting and who created it, and when, etc. unless one is blessed with a nearly photographic memory. It takes, generally, repetition to get that info ingrained in one’s mind for quick recognition and recall of the info. It is VERY VERY unlikely that students in the class would have been able to identify a thumbnail of one of the images in question as portraying anyone in particular unless they had studied the image beforehand and known it, nearly memorized its appearance, along with title (or at least known the subject), upon seeing it online in those conditions. There is nothing in the two images in question that would automatically signal the identity of the figures portrayed to anyone but a trained and experienced Art Historian who knows the iconography of Islamic Art. PERHAPS, if the instructor had captioned the image on each thumbnail in sufficiently large font to enable a student to read the caption on their cellphone or laptop (or however they were participating in the online class), would a student, untrained in the iconography and unfamiliar with the image beforehand, be able to recognize the identity of the figure portrayed within those couple of minutes the thumbnail was reportedly visible.
Fed up. • Jan 28, 2023 at 5:10 pm
Aida, your comments are highly insensitive and dismissive of the experiences of your students by discrediting their prior knowledge of seeing course materials and their experiences outside of your white narrative. It is possible someone could have seen this image before, recognized it, and had their religious trauma be triggered. I don’t care if you’re the department chair or not, who do you think you are to down-talk black women and their experiences? Especially as a pearl-clutching white woman with a whole lot of other privileges. Sometimes trigger warnings aren’t enough and you don’t get to tell someone who is oppressed by being a religious minority in a post 9/11 world who is black and from a community with a lot of trauma that your right to comfort is more important than their safety. A door has been opened to allow hate crimes on campus and Hamline as a historic PWI that loves to tokenize students of color will be losing a lot of us. You will never have a lived day of being a Muslim woman or being a black refugee who is forced to assimilate. Step back and listen instead of thinking you know it all. Communities of color are already so tired these last few weeks with the slayings of Mr. Nichols, Mr. Anderson, and so many others who have also been lost through mass shootings.
Aida Audeh, Professor Emeritus of Art History • Jan 28, 2023 at 7:33 pm
I’m not a pearl clutching white woman. My name should tell you that. I’m the kid of immigrants to this country from the Middle East. I am not the chair and was not the chair when the events this fall happened. I retired from HU in December 2021. I taught art history at HU for 20 years. What is your claim to understanding anything about teaching art history. Or about art history itself.
Aida Audeh, Professor Emeritus of Art History • Jan 28, 2023 at 7:35 pm
Further – my parents are Palestinian. If anyone knows anything about being a minority it’s my family and it’s me.
Abby • Jan 29, 2023 at 7:52 am
Extraordinary example, this exchange here.
@Fedup: The guiding principles should be liberalism and pluralism. Liberalism (respect for individual rights, among others such as free speech and religion) has been the basis of effective civil rights movements in the United States and around the world. Liberalism can be combined with decency and respect, and should be, but doesn’t have to be.
Respecting all students’ lived experiences is a liberal and pluralistic value. Giving adequate warning about showing the painting is being decent and respectful.
Forcing one person’s religious views on everyone else is anti-liberal, and anti-pluralistic. It stands in the way of civil rights. This position you are taking is what held back civil rights movements for years.
I hope that you pause and consider the gravity (and wrongness) of your position. And the fact that you attacked Professor Audeh publicly (she signed her name, you did not) before even fully understanding who she is as a person. Which ironically undermines your argument.
This is where your argument breaks down. What if a religiously devout student was arguing for gender separation in the classroom? Or that the same gender could not be in the same classroom – but they had to be partitioned in two different classrooms? And that all women (non-observers included) had to cover themselves? Because this is their lived experience, and they’re deeply offended by a co-ed school where students of multiple genders live on the same floors in the dorm.
Or, if religious groups opposed gay pride at Hamline, because it cuts so deeply against their lived experience?
This is the argument you are making.
Mr. Smith • Jan 29, 2023 at 1:29 pm
I have a few questions for @Fedup that might, if answered, help build common understanding:
1. What does it mean to have one’s “religious trauma be triggered?”
2. Given that this matter deals with academic freedom and religious views, how is one’s race pertinent to the discussion?
3. How do a “right to comfort” and a right to academic freedom differ? How are they similar?
4. How does seeing an image, intentionally or unintentionally, jeopardize one’s “safety?”
5. What does it mean to “tokenize students of color?” Are Hamline administrators tokenizing students of color when they dismiss a member of faculty for teaching materials relevant to his or her field?
6. Who’s being “forced to assimilate?” Who’s not? By whom? Is choosing to attend a university that says it upholds academic freedom an example of being forced to assimilate?
Tim L. • Jan 29, 2023 at 2:41 pm
Your overheated response includes this gem: “pearl-clutching white woman,” which shows you are using your hypersensitivity to hide some seriously vile stereotypes of your own, The complaining student was glad to say she’s “completely non-Westernized” and then says she invites the dismissed adjunct to learn more about Islam, but nowhere anywhere does she give any indication she has any interest in learning about other viewpoints. It’s all all about her and her religion and no one else’s. She is not a voice for diversity at all — she is a voice against it, and she has brought this problem onto herself.
Daniel Lundquist • Jan 29, 2023 at 7:57 pm
I could give you my bio., being a HU alumnus, my graduate education, my professional work, etc., but I don’t think that would matter given all that is going on, denigrated, and ignored.
In some sense, I agree that my bio is immaterial because the simple reality is that in this country fundamentalism in all its forms is a threat to freedom in all its forms. It is obvious really. We have fought and died and wrote a constitution for this reality.
This is why the administration has failed, simply and obviously.
Alan Wilson • Feb 2, 2023 at 4:26 pm
Enjoy your oberlin moment. You earned it.
George • Jan 27, 2023 at 5:38 pm
“Wedatalla saw the warnings as evidence that López Prater knew she should not be showing the depictions in the first place.”
Well, there you have it. Hundreds of thousands of words later, across the nation and the globe. The contradictions and circular “logic” would make Lewis Carroll proud. Please, can someone stop this spectacle?