The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) suspended tenured art therapy professor Savneet Talwar after a student complained about her assignment asking students to develop an ethical treatment plan for a hypothetical queer, Muslim woman living in the United States, The Guardian reported.
The two-page assignment mentioned the hypothetical woman’s case study, her family history, relationships, and legal immigration status. The assignment mentioned that the woman “felt deeply affected by the violence against Palestinian civilians” and felt “critical of her home government’s limited response,” but it contained no additional references to Palestine or Palestinians, and no mention of Israel, the publication noted.
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Soon after issuing the assignment, the school’s dean called Talwar to ask whether she had assigned work about Palestine. The school’s provost then called Talwar into an “urgent” meeting, and issued a message the following day stating that Talwar had been put on paid leave and was forbidden from talking to students or colleagues about the issue.
A letter to the professor from the school official said that she had given “an academic assignment that focused solely on the issues of a Muslim woman with strong sympathies for the Palestinian cause.” A school official told Talwar that her assignment might constitute “discrimination, harassment and/or retaliation.”
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The Jewish-Israeli student who complained about the assignment had already issued multiple complaints about alleged antisemitism in the school’s art therapy department. Department faculty were subsequently forced to undergo anti-bias training to address the departmental “climate.”
In a May 13 letter explaining the circumstances around Tawal’s suspension, school officials said that Talwar had previously mentioned the December 14, 2025 Bondi Beach terror attack in Australia without acknowledging the role of antisemitism in the attack. The letter also said that Tawal had once encouraged the Jewish-Israeli student to “consider” attending a lecture from a guest described as a “strong anti-Zionist activist.”
Talwar denied that her assignment was antisemitic or discriminatory in any way. She said she plans to file a formal employment discrimination complaint against the school.
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