The suspension of an art therapy professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago has sparked a mobilisation of students, artists, alumni, and former faculty, transforming a classroom case study into a battle over censorship, teaching rights, and the management of dissent at American universities.
Savneet Talwar has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2008. She is a tenured professor, a board-certified art therapist, and Chair of the Graduate Art Therapy and Counseling Program. Her work brings together art therapy, critical pedagogy, social justice, postcolonial studies, and participatory artistic practices.
Talwar is also the author of Art Therapy for Social Justice: Radical Intersections, a book that challenges the supposed neutrality of therapeutic practice and calls attention to the political, economic, and cultural conditions in which people live. In her work, art therapy is not merely a tool for individual care: it is a practice that must acknowledge the inequalities, identities, and power structures that shape society. Read Savneet Talwar’s faculty profile
In the spring of 2026, this pedagogical approach became the focus of a controversy that would extend far beyond the university.
On 16 April, as part of her course Cultural Dimensions in Art Therapy, Talwar assigned the class an exercise based on a hypothetical case. Students were asked to develop a possible treatment plan for Bela, a young queer Arab immigrant and university student who supported pro-Palestinian protests.
The case described Bela as deeply affected by violence against Palestinian civilians and critical of her home government’s limited response. The educational purpose was to ask future art therapists to engage with a person whose psychological experience could not be separated from her identity, migration, sexuality, and the international political situation.
According to Talwar, the case was assigned to the entire class. The SAIC administration reportedly maintained, at least initially, that the exercise had been given to only one student. The controversy arose from a complaint submitted by an unnamed student.
The day after the assignment, Talwar received notice that an investigation had been opened into allegations of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation. On 20 April, Provost Martin Berger placed her on administrative leave, alleging that her continued presence in the position could cause immediate harm.
The removal occurred in the middle of the semester. Talwar was therefore unable to complete her courses or continue performing her responsibilities as chair of the programme. According to her subsequent account, SAIC also cancelled one of her summer courses despite its high enrolment. Hyperallergic, 9 June 2026
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