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The graduate art therapy professor was placed on leave last semester after she assigned her class a case study that mentioned violence against Palestinians.
Savneet Talwar (photo Salome Chasnoff, courtesy Savneet Talwar)
With the fall semester approaching in under three weeks, more than 400 individuals associated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) are renewing their efforts to have Savneet Talwar reinstated. The professor was unexpectedly placed on leave last spring due to a class assignment that mentioned violence against Palestinian civilians.
As the chair and a tenured professor of SAIC’s graduate art therapy and counseling program, Talwar was notified in April that a student had filed a complaint of discrimination regarding a hypothetical case study she assigned, prompting an ongoing investigation by the school.
A petition released on July 20 by SAIC performance alumni Mary Zerkel and Michael Thomas, with artist and alum Dread Scott as a co-signer, asserts, “Professor Talwar should not be suspended and brought under investigation for mentioning Palestinians in a case study for an art therapy class.” The petition emphasizes that “Palestinians are real people and violence against Palestinians is a fact.”
