On April 17, 2026, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) placed Savneet Talwar, a tenured faculty member and chair of the school’s art therapy and counseling program, on paid leave because of a class assignment.
Talwar, a scholar of North Indian Punjabi heritage, is an expert in the ethics of care, culture and identity, trauma-informed art therapy, intersectional feminism, and feminist pedagogy. In April 2026, she was teaching a graduate level class on the cultural dimensions of psychological treatment. She assigned a case study for an imaginary queer, Muslim woman living in the US experiencing psychological issues, and tasked the students with developing an ethical treatment plan. The majority of the case study described the patient’s family history, relationships, and immigrant status. It included two sentences referencing Palestinians, “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.”
After Talwar issued the assignment, an SAIC dean called her to ask her whether any of her assignments had “anything with Palestine in it.” On April 15, Talwar was asked to attend an “urgent” meeting with SAIC’s provost. She was informed that a student in her class had complained about the assignment and that her class scheduled to occur the following day was canceled. The day after that, on April 17, SAIC formally informed Talwar that she had been placed on paid leave pending an investigation. At the direction of administrators, the case study was removed from the online learning platform used by the class. In a formal letter to Talwar, SAIC informed her that the case study might constitute “discrimination, harassment and/or retaliation.”
On May 13, the school stated that Talwar was also under investigation for two additional complaints made by the same student. These included an incident in which Talwar did not mention antisemitism when discussing the December 14, 2025 attack at a Hannukah celebration at Bondi beach in Australia, and characterized the attack as “gun violence;” and another in which she suggested that the student who issued the complaint consider attending a lecture by a “strong anti-Zionist activist.”
Scholars at Risk is concerned about the suspension of a tenured professor over the content of a class assignment. While universities have a responsibility to respond to complaints from stakeholders, any response must not be at the expense of academic freedom and free expression. Suspension or other sanctions for professional expression within a scholars professional expertise violates academic freedom and undermines democratic society generally.
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/05/professor-suspended-assignment-mentions-palestinians
https://www.ynetnews.com/jewish-world/article/s1lc8uwzfl https://americankahani.com/lead-stories/the-suspension-of-indian-american-professor-savneet-talwar-and-the-silencing-of-palestine-in-classrooms/