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
SAIC has declined to comment on the details of the case, stating that it cannot publicly discuss an ongoing investigation. A spokesperson nevertheless said that the institution does not discipline faculty members for protected classroom discussions concerning national, religious, racial, or cultural issues.
That statement, however, does not resolve the case’s central contradiction: a tenured professor was removed from teaching immediately after a complaint concerning an exercise that introduced Palestine into an imagined therapeutic situation.
Talwar has denied the allegations. She explained that the assignment had a clear pedagogical purpose and that preparing students to work with people from different communities is a fundamental responsibility of art therapy education. The profession’s ethical standards require practitioners not to discriminate against patients on the basis of origin, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or other aspects of identity.
From this perspective, removing from the curriculum a case involving an Arab person who sympathises with the Palestinian cause would not make teaching more neutral. On the contrary, it could make invisible the very people whom students may encounter in their future professional work.
Talwar’s attorney, Rima Kapitan, has argued that the university failed to provide sufficiently specific information about the allegations and that the process was applied in a discriminatory manner. On 9 June, Talwar filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, alleging discrimination based on her real or perceived association with Arab and Palestinian people. She also submitted a separate allegation concerning age discrimination.
Talwar described the university’s response as “immediate and disproportionate.” In her view, the issue does not concern only her individual position. It also concerns academic freedom, professors’ right to design their courses independently, the role of faculty governance, and the way institutions respond to political pressure.
The incident belongs to a broader climate. Since 7 October 2023 and the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, numerous American universities have become sites of conflict over protests, encampments, curricula, and public statements about Palestine. In many cases, administrations facing accusations of antisemitism, pressure from donors, or political intervention have adopted measures that faculty members and civil rights organisations consider restrictions on freedom of expression.
The Talwar case represents a particularly significant development: the controversy does not concern a demonstration or a public statement, but the content of a classroom exercise. What has been challenged is not an explicitly activist declaration by the professor, but the presence of a Palestinian person—or someone expressing solidarity with Palestinians—within an imagined scenario intended for professional training.
On 11 June, Hyperallergic editor-in-chief Hrag Vartanian interpreted the affair as an attempt to control not only what can be said but also what can be imagined. If a professor cannot ask students to imagine how they might assist someone traumatised by violence against Palestinians, the restriction placed on education also becomes a restriction on the ability to recognise certain human experiences. Read the commentary
The Middle East Studies Association has also expressed concern. In a letter to SAIC, the association’s Committee on Academic Freedom challenged Talwar’s suspension and the investigations initiated against her, describing their grounds as dubious and highlighting possible violations of academic freedom, university governance, and due process.
MESA observed that the suspension appeared to have been imposed without prior review by a faculty body, citing recommendations by the American Association of University Professors. The organisation called on SAIC to terminate the disciplinary processes and publicly reaffirm its commitment to academic freedom. Read the MESA letter
The mobilisation grew during the summer. On 20 July, alumni Mary Zerkel and Michael Thomas published a petition supported by artist and SAIC alumnus Dread Scott, among others. By early August, with fewer than three weeks remaining before the start of the autumn semester, more than 400 members of the SAIC community had endorsed its demands.
The petition describes the suspension as an act of censorship and argues that mentioning violence against Palestinians cannot in itself constitute discriminatory conduct. It also alleges that Talwar was denied access to an appropriate grievance committee process and that her administrative leave violated AAUP policies cited in SAIC’s own faculty handbook.
The signatories are calling for:
- Talwar’s immediate reinstatement to her teaching and professional responsibilities;
- a public apology to the professor for censoring the case study;
- an apology to the students and faculty affected by the proceedings;
- a fund providing counselling and restorative support to affected students;
- an institution-wide dialogue led by an independent mediator;
- the resignation of Provost Martin Berger.
The petition, which remains open until 7 September 2026, also makes a broader criticism of the institution’s handling of the case. Its organisers allege that the concerns of entire cohorts were subordinated to the complaint of a single student, creating a climate of fear and uncertainty. These remain the claims of the signatories rather than findings established by an independent body. Petition in support of Savneet Talwar
As of 5 August, Talwar was still listed as the instructor for two autumn courses. She said, however, that she had not been formally reinstated and had not received the annual contract normally sent to faculty members. The investigation remained open. Hyperallergic, 5 August 2026
At the heart of the controversy lies an essential question: can a university protect its students without turning every pedagogical conflict into a disciplinary proceeding?
Complaints of discrimination must be taken seriously, but protecting students cannot erase academic freedom or replace discussion with preventive suspension. When an administrative measure is imposed before the facts have been established, punishment can precede any determination of responsibility. For a tenured professor, being abruptly removed from the classroom and from the leadership of her programme has professional and reputational consequences even in the absence of a final decision.
The Savneet Talwar case is not only about a reference to Palestine. It concerns the possibility of teaching complexity, of introducing into the classroom people and conflicts that institutions might prefer not to confront, and of preparing students to work in a society shaped by real political trauma.
For art therapy, the issue is particularly clear. A therapeutic practice unable to name war, racism, migration, colonialism, or institutional violence risks reducing suffering to an exclusively individual problem. Talwar’s work begins from the opposite premise: care also possesses a political dimension because every person enters the therapeutic space carrying a history, a body, an identity, and the world in which they are compelled to live.
The mobilisation for her reinstatement therefore defends something larger than the position of a single professor. It defends the right of students and educators to name Palestine, to study it, and even to imagine a relationship of care with those who carry its wounds.
