A professor who sparked a controversy by wearing a hijab at the Christian college where she worked and ended up leaving after the school moved to fire her has resurfaced at University of Virginia, where she will do research on Islam.
Larycia Hawkins, who left Wheaton College in Illinois earlier this year after refusing to stop wearing Islamic garb and insisting that Christians and Muslims worship the same god, has been named the “Abd el-Kader Visiting Faculty Fellow” at the Charlottesville school’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.
“The Institute is pleased to welcome Dr. Larycia Hawkins as the Abd el-Kader Visiting Faculty Fellow,” reads the institute’s website.
Hawkins will conduct research on the relationship between religions and race while serving in the role named for a 19th-century Islamic scholar and leader. The school describes the institute as working to “contribute directly to transdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue.” Applicants’ research must be conducted in what the school described as Abd el-Kader’s example of “moral leadership, lifelong commitment to learning, and open spirit, fostering reconciliation.”
