{"id":479308,"date":"2026-06-06T12:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T12:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/479308\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T12:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T12:22:09","slug":"we-call-it-the-p-word-chicago-professor-suspended-after-assignment-mentions-palestinians-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/479308\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We call it the P-word\u2019: Chicago professor suspended after assignment mentions Palestinians | Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tenured art therapy professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago<\/a> (SAIC) was suspended from teaching and placed under investigation following a student\u2019s complaint about an assigned case study that mentioned violence against Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Savneet Talwar, a faculty member with the school\u2019s art therapy and counseling program, assigned the case study in April to a class on the cultural dimensions of therapy. The assignment asked students to develop an ethical treatment plan for a hypothetical queer, Muslim woman living in the US.<\/p>\n

The language of the assignment read: \u201cWhile she was not particularly politically active in her home country, protests in support of Palestine<\/a> resonated with her on a personal level. She felt deeply affected by the violence against Palestinian civilians and was critical of the home government\u2019s limited response.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two-page assignment, which was reviewed by the Guardian, mostly focused on other elements of the client\u2019s case, including her family history, relationships and status as an immigrant. It made no additional references to Palestine or Palestinians, and no mention of Israel<\/a>. But Talwar\u2019s department had already been mired in multiple complaints and investigations about alleged antisemitism involving the same student, and faculty had been required to take anti-bias training as the school sought to address the \u201cclimate\u201d in the department.<\/p>\n

The school was also sued in late 2023 <\/a>by an Israeli student in the same program over alleged antisemitism, including an assignment for which students were asked to review images drawn by children depicting violence by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilians. (A judge dismissed that lawsuit, twice<\/a>).<\/p>\n

After Talwar\u2019s student received the case study, the professor got a call from a dean asking whether she had assigned \u201canything with Palestine in it\u201d. She was then called into an \u201curgent\u201d meeting with the school\u2019s provost, and her class for the following day was canceled. The following day, on 17 April, the school formally notified Talwar that she was being put on paid leave, and forbade her from speaking about the matter with students and colleagues. The case study was removed from an online learning platform used for the class. In a letter, a school official warned Talwar that assigning the student the case study might constitute \u201cdiscrimination, harassment and\/or retaliation\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to the letter, the student was also involved in separate investigations \u201cinvolving claims by her as a Jewish Israeli related to alleged conduct expressing an anti-Israeli, antisemitic, and\/or pro-Palestine viewpoint\u201d. The official wrote that despite being aware of the other investigations, Talwar \u201cgave an academic assignment that focused solely on the issues of a Muslim woman with strong sympathies for the Palestinian cause\u201d. In a separate letter to Talwar, a dean appeared to question her judgment for assigning the case study under the ongoing \u201ccircumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons this issue raises such serious concerns is that there have been multiple, prior complaints alleging the creation of a hostile environment within your department,\u201d the dean wrote.<\/p>\n

Talwar told the Guardian in an exclusive interview that she was \u201cstunned\u201d by a suspension that appeared to be motivated by \u201cthe mere mention of the word Palestine\u201d.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for SAIC declined to comment on personnel matters or ongoing investigations, but said that the school was committed \u201cto learning environments in which ideas are freely exchanged and students and faculty are welcomed, respected, and valued\u201d. The Guardian could not reach the student who complained.<\/p>\n

Talwar, through an attorney, submitted a formal grievance letter and argued that the suspension might itself be discriminatory. Nearly a month after she had been suspended from teaching, on 13 May, school officials outlined other issues involving the same student that predated the case study.<\/p>\n

The school officials cited included exchanges in which Talwar allegedly characterized the Bondi beach terror attack in Australia as \u201cgun violence\u201d without acknowledging antisemitism, and suggested that the student \u201cconsider\u201d whether to attend a lecture by a guest described as a \u201cstrong anti-Zionist activist\u201d.<\/p>\n

Talwar declined to respond to allegations involving the student, citing confidentiality she is bound to. She flatly rejected that the case study she assigned was antisemitic or discriminatory in any way, and plans to file a formal employment discrimination complaint against the school.<\/p>\n

Rima Kapitan, her attorney, said in a letter to school officials that they don\u2019t even have a clear \u201ctheory of discrimination\u201d. She wrote that Talwar had \u201cbent over backwards\u201d to accommodate the student.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre SAIC faculty expected to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their course materials? Are Arab Muslims unworthy of their own case studies?\u201d Kapitan wrote. \u201cIf 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?\u201d<\/p>\n

Talwar said her case was an example of mounting \u201cpolitical pressure\u201d in higher education.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call it the \u2018P-word\u2019 now,\u201d she said, referring to faculty\u2019s hesitation to discuss Palestine amid a repressive climate on US college campuses. \u201cThere is no tolerance for the very word.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tenured art therapy professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) was suspended from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-479308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}