Savneet Talwar, a tenured professor and chair of the art therapy department, has been on leave since April 20.
School of the Art Institute of Chicago | Salome Chasnoff
Officials at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago placed an art therapy professor on paid leave after a student complained that an assignment featuring a mock patient who “felt deeply affected by the violence against Palestinian civilians” violated the school’s discrimination policy.
Savneet Talwar, a tenured professor and chair of the art therapy department, has been on leave since April 20, four days after Provost Martin Berger notified her that a graduate student in her class had submitted a complaint claiming Talwar “gave an academic assignment that focused solely on the issues of a Muslim woman with strong sympathies for the Palestinian cause,” according to a letter Talwar’s lawyer, Rima Kapitan, sent school officials. The claim contradicted what Talwar said she’d heard from her dean—that an external Jewish group had contacted SAIC president Jiseon Lee Isbara with concerns about the assignment. By the time she asked the dean about the group, “she changed the story,” Talwar said.
The assignment in question asked students in Talwar’s Cultural Dimensions of Art Therapy class to submit an analysis of a provided case that demonstrated “their understanding of intersectionality as a method of analysis and how it informs the development of a thoughtful and ethical treatment plan,” according to the instructions that Talwar shared with Inside Higher Ed. Bea, the mock patient, is a 27-year-old, queer Muslim woman who was raised in the Middle East and is currently pursuing her doctorate in the United States. The assignment includes details about her personal life and her motivations for pursuing art therapy; among them are her parents’ divorce and family tensions, pressure in romantic relationships, stress brought on by the Trump administration’s actions toward immigrants, and her grief about violence against Palestinians.
