When academic freedom becomes classroom bullying

On October 7, a student wearing a niqab sat near the front of a master's class in the Department of English at the University of Dhaka. Around 130 students were present.

According to classmates, Associate Professor Tasneem Siraj Mahboob told the student that she was observing purdah incorrectly. Women, the teacher reportedly said, were not required to cover their faces, hands or feet.

She then said the student's appearance made her uncomfortable and unsafe, and asked her to move to the back of the classroom.

When another student defended her classmate's right to follow her own religious interpretation, the teacher reportedly turned her anger on her. The niqab-wearing student and two others left.

Then came a more disturbing exchange.

According to students present, the teacher asked the classmate who had defended her: "Can you say she is not a fundamentalist? Can you say she is not a terrorist?"

Most of the class walked out.

The student is in her final master's semester. Over five years, her teachers have read her assignments, evaluated her examinations, questioned her in nine viva voce examinations and watched her progress through the department.

Yet her choice of clothing apparently became sufficient grounds to raise the possibility that she was a terrorist.

What happened that day, if the students' accounts are established, was not an exercise in intellectual disagreement. It was an abuse of the unequal power that exists between a teacher and a student.

And it raises an uncomfortable question for a university that prides itself on intellectual freedom: How much humiliation must students endure before they are entitled to object?

The limits of academic freedom

The issue over the niqab was not the only complaint from that class.

Earlier, according to students, the teacher had mocked male students for their poverty, saying they wore the same T-shirts repeatedly and smelled unpleasant while sitting close together.

The students sit crowded together because the department lacks adequate classrooms and benches. They already bear the consequences of that institutional failure. They should not also have to endure ridicule for it.

The complaints, then, are not simply about religious freedom. They concern a broader pattern of conduct in which students say their poverty, religious practices and personal circumstances became subjects of classroom humiliation.

Students acknowledge that the teacher has supported them during earlier protests. They respect that contribution. But past solidarity does not place a teacher's present conduct beyond scrutiny.

There is also an important distinction between academic freedom and the exercise of academic authority.

A university teacher must be free to question religious customs, criticise the niqab, challenge orthodox interpretations and express unpopular views. Universities would cease to function as places of serious inquiry without that freedom.

But freedom to debate a practice is not the same as freedom to humiliate someone who follows it.

The October 7 class was not a discussion about the niqab. A student was reportedly singled out, ordered to move and subsequently associated with fundamentalism and terrorism because of her clothing.

That is not an argument about religion. It is a judgment about an individual, made from a position of authority.

Of course, discomfort with the niqab is not inherently unreasonable.

Teachers rely on facial expressions to gauge whether students understand a lesson. Examiners must also establish the identities of candidates. Face coverings can create practical difficulties in both settings.

But practical problems require practical solutions.

During this student's previous viva examinations, a male teacher stepped outside while she showed her face to women examiners. DUCSU has proposed using women teachers or fingerprint verification during examinations.

In classrooms, teachers can engage covered students through questions or individual conversations. None of these arrangements requires public humiliation.

There is another concern worth addressing. Some fear that defending a student's right to wear a niqab could encourage pressure on other women to dress more conservatively.

That concern deserves an unequivocal answer.

The same principle that protects a woman's decision to cover her face must protect another woman's decision to leave her hair uncovered. A student pressured to wear a hijab deserves exactly the same institutional protection as one harassed for wearing a niqab.

DUCSU must defend both. Religious freedom cannot mean protecting only the choices we approve of.

The larger issue is whether students can make personal decisions without fear of punishment from those responsible for their education.

For too long, that has been uncertain in Bangladesh's universities.

Students describe a culture in which humiliation is routinely tolerated in classrooms, viva boards and residential halls. They say complaints about teachers can carry academic consequences, while formal avenues for redress offer little reassurance.

A teacher may control a student's grades, sit on an examination board, supervise a thesis or provide the recommendation needed for a scholarship or employment.

That concentration of power makes even a seemingly minor confrontation consequential.

Students have seen what they believe to be retaliation against classmates who complained. Whether every such allegation can be substantiated is a matter for investigation. But the perception of risk is widespread enough to discourage complaints.

Silence, in such circumstances, is not necessarily consent. It can be a calculation about survival within an institution.

A university that responds only to public pressure

The October 7 incident became public almost immediately.

Students described what had happened on Facebook. As the posts spread, DUCSU and other student organisations demanded action. The department's Academic Committee considered the matter and recommended removing the teacher from classroom duties.

On October 8, DUCSU called for a swift and impartial investigation, with disciplinary action under university rules only if the allegations were substantiated.

We did not demand a predetermined verdict.

That distinction matters. The students' accounts are serious, but the teacher is entitled to a fair inquiry. Protecting complainants and respecting due process are not competing obligations.

The more troubling question is why students believed they needed social media attention before their complaints would be heard.

Dhaka University already has formal mechanisms.

In October 2025, the administration announced an Anti-Bullying and Ragging Committee following a Syndicate decision, along with complaint boxes in faculties, departments and residential halls.

In January 2026, it announced plans to collaborate with BRAC to improve investigation procedures.

These initiatives suggest an institutional recognition of the problem. Yet students rarely see published findings or clear evidence of consequences following complaints.

For someone considering an allegation against a senior teacher, the risks are immediate and personal. The prospect of institutional protection remains uncertain.

Facebook offers something the formal system often appears unable to guarantee: an audience.

But a university cannot run its disciplinary process according to which complaint attracts the most attention online. Students without influential networks, sympathetic audiences or viral posts deserve the same protection.

An institution that acts only when allegations become public is not demonstrating accountability. It is responding to reputational pressure.

And even in this case, the university's initial response has left a serious problem unresolved.

On October 8, the Academic Committee recommended that the teacher be relieved of teaching duties. Her two courses were reassigned.

Yet she remains responsible for examining final-semester scripts, including those belonging to students who walked out or publicly described the incident.

This is an obvious conflict of interest.

The students' final master's results will affect their applications for higher education, scholarships and employment. They should not have to wonder whether speaking up could influence those results.

Nor should the teacher be placed in a position where an unfavourable grade might later be interpreted as retaliation, regardless of whether it was academically justified.

Reassigning the scripts would protect both sides. The university should take four further steps.

First, complete an impartial investigation promptly and publish its findings, whether they substantiate the allegations or clear the teacher.

Second, provide written assurances that students who complained or participated in the walkout will not face academic retaliation in examinations, vivas, thesis assessments or recommendations. Those assurances must be backed by an accessible review mechanism.

Third, establish clear and consistent arrangements for verifying the identities of niqab-wearing students during examinations, without subjecting them to unnecessary embarrassment.

Finally, make the complaints process credible. Students need to know who will investigate allegations, how conflicts of interest will be handled, when decisions will be made and what protections exist against retaliation.

These are not extraordinary demands. They are basic safeguards in an institution where one group holds considerable authority over another.

The controversy should not become a contest between religious conservatism and secularism. Nor should it become a referendum on whether teachers may criticise religious practices.

They may, and they should remain free to do so.

But a university cannot defend intellectual freedom while tolerating the humiliation of students for their clothing, poverty or beliefs.

Teachers are entitled to challenge students' ideas, sometimes forcefully. Students are entitled to disagree. Neither side should be exempt from scrutiny.

But students must never be required to accept the use of academic power to enforce personal prejudices.

Dhaka University now has an opportunity to establish that distinction through a fair investigation and meaningful protection for everyone involved.

The test is not whether the university can manage another controversy. It is whether a student can challenge a teacher's conduct without putting her academic future at risk.

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Sabikun Nahar Tamanna is an Executive Member of Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (DUCSU) 2025