With less than three weeks until the start of the fall semester, over 400 members of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s (SAIC) community have resumed their calls for the reinstatement of Savneet Talwar. The professor was abruptly put on leave last spring after one of her class assignments mentioned violence against Palestinian civilians.
Talwar, chair and tenured professor of SAIC’s graduate art therapy and counseling program, was informed by the administration in April that a student had accused her of discrimination over a hypothetical case study, sparking an ongoing investigation from the school.
“Professor Talwar should not be suspended and brought under investigation for mentioning Palestinians in a case study for an art therapy class,” reads a section of the petition, which was released on July 20 by SAIC performance alumni Mary Zerkel and Michael Thomas, and co-signed by artist and alum Dread Scott. “Palestinians are real people and violence against Palestinians is a fact.”
