A tenured art therapy professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago is under investigation over course materials that referenced Palestine, becoming the latest flashpoint in debates about eroding freedom of expression on American college campuses, the Guardian reported Friday.
Savneet Talwar was reportedly suspended from teaching and is facing a disciplinary investigation following a student’s complaint about a case study assigned in April. Talwar told the Guardian that the assignment was given in a graduate course titled “Cultural Dimensions of Therapy” and asked students to develop an ethical treatment plan for a hypothetical queer Muslim woman living in the United States. The case study included the following description: “While she was not particularly politically active in her home country, protests in support of Palestine resonated with her on a personal level. She felt deeply affected by the violence against Palestinian civilians and was critical of the home government’s limited response.”
The two-page assignment reportedly focused on the fictional client’s relationships and experiences as an immigrant, with no further references to Palestine or Israel. According to Talwar, she was called into an “urgent” meeting with senior administrators shortly afterward and questioned about whether she had assigned “anything with Palestine in it.” The following day, April 17, Talwar was notified in a letter from a school official that she was being placed on paid leave and instructed not to discuss the matter with students or faculty. She was warned that assigning the case study to the student could constitute “discrimination, harassment and/or retaliation.”
The letter also noted that the student had prompted multiple investigations “involving claims by her as a Jewish Israeli related to alleged conduct expressing an anti-Israeli, antisemitic, and/or pro-Palestine viewpoint.” The school was sued in 2023 over alleged antisemitism stemming from an assignment that asked students to review drawings by children depicting violence perpetrated by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilians. (A judge later dismissed the lawsuit.)
According to the Guardian, an administrator argued that, despite a history of complaints—including classroom discussions that characterized the 2025 Bondi Beach shooting in Australia as an act of “gun violence” and the promotion of a guest lecture by a “strong anti-Zionist activist”—Talwar had nevertheless “gave[n] an academic assignment that focused solely on the issues of a Muslim woman with strong sympathies for the Palestinian cause.” For her part, Talwar said she was “stunned” to have been suspended over what she described as “the mere mention of the word Palestine.”
ARTnews has reached out to Talwar’s legal representatives and SAIC, but did not hear back at press time.
While a school spokesperson declined to discuss the ongoing investigation, they reiterated to The Guardian the institution’s commitment “to learning environments in which ideas are freely exchanged and students and faculty are welcomed, respected, and valued.”
Talwar has rejected claims that the subject matter of the contested case study was antisemitic or discriminatory. She added that her legal counsel had submitted a formal grievance letter on her behalf arguing that the suspension itself constituted discrimination. Rima Kapitan, her attorney, accused school officials of failing to even offer a coherent “theory of discrimination”.
“Are SAIC faculty expected to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their course materials? Are Arab Muslims unworthy of their own case studies?” Kapitan wrote in a statement. “If a white supremacist student filed a discrimination complaint with the University alleging that he was triggered by a case study about a Black client who was struggling with police violence against Black people, would SAIC proceed with an investigation against the professor who drafted the assignment?”
Public and private universities across the country have struggled to reconcile free-expression protections with allegations of antisemitism, amid what critics describe as a shrinking academic space for criticism of Israel. More than 3,000 students were arrested during encampments, campus occupations, and other pro-Palestinian protests across the US in 2024. Meanwhile, administrators at art schools including the Rhode Island School of Design and the Cooper Union in New York faced backlash over the closure, relocation, or alteration of student exhibitions that referenced Palestine.
In 2024, the SAIC risked sanctions or censure from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), a leading nonprofit organization that advocates for academic freedom, over its response to student activism. As previously reported by ARTnews, the controversy surrounded a student-curated exhibition that included calls for divestment from Israel: Kelly Xi, an artist and lecturer, was placed on administrative leave as the school investigated her alleged misuse of school printing funds: Xi had used a photocopiers to produce advertisements for the an exhibition that included calls for divestment from Israel, as well as criticisms of the school administration’s handling of its protest encampment.
The SAIC encampment, located less than a block from Millennium Park and Cloud Gate (better known as “the Bean”), was especially fraught. Cook County is home to one of the largest Palestinian communities in the United States, and the protests unfolded as Chicago prepared to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention, drawing heightened national media attention to the city. A police raid on the encampment resulted in the arrests of more than 68 students and prompted widely circulated allegations of “brutal treatment” by officers.
Activists and school officials offered conflicting accounts of how the police raid unfolded, with administrators claiming that the protest had turned violent after prolonged efforts to end it peacefully—a characterization that student protesters strongly disputed. Witnesses to the raid maintained that the protest was lawful and accused Martin Berger, SAIC’s provost, of reneging on a promise to allow student leaders to reach an internal compromise before involving police.
Ultimately, the conflict exacerbated an existing rift between the school and its community over political activism. Mary Patten, a longtime SAIC professor and artist-activist, told ARTnews that a number of her students “were afraid to speak” in the wake of the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza. “In May [2024], there were more students arrested than at any other university or college in Chicago. By that point, the principles on which higher education used to stand—the idea that faculty share governance with the administration—was exposed as a complete tissue of lies,” she added.
In Kelly Xi’s case, the exhibition she helped organize was reviewed by a committee of administrators and faculty members, who warned that its content might violate the school’s anti-harassment policies. Emails reviewed by ARTnews at the time show that the committee requested the student curators remove two works from the exhibition, including a 2023 fabric installation by Ahmad Almahdi bearing the names of 6,000 Palestinians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza. The students said they complied with the request out of fear of reprisal.
Kapitan, who currently represents Savneet Talwar, became involved on the students’ behalf. Kapitan accused the committee of engaging in “discriminatory” conduct, an allegation the school categorically denied.
Talwar, speaking to The Guardian, described her ongoing case as emblematic of what she called ratcheting “political pressure” on US college campuses over the free discussion of Palestine. “We call it the ‘P-word’ now,” she said, adding, “There is no tolerance for the very word.
