Hundreds Demand Reinstatement of SAIC Professor Savneet Talwar
The graduate art therapy professor was placed on leave last semester after she assigned her class a case study that mentioned violence against Palestinians.
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.”
In addition to the allegations of “clear censorship” and compromised academic freedom, the petition also states that Talwar was denied due process with a grievance committee over the complaint, and that her administrative leave is a “violation of American Association of University Professors (AAUP) policy that is also stated in [SAIC's] faculty handbook.”
“I want to emphasize that the actions of the senior administration have seriously threatened academic freedom, due process, and shared governance at SAIC,” Talwar wrote in an email to Hyperallergic.
The professor said that not only had SAIC put her on leave in the middle of the spring semester, but the school also canceled her scheduled summer course despite its high enrollment. Though she's listed as the instructor for two courses this fall, she told Hyperallergic that she has neither been formally reinstated nor received the renewal contract sent annually to all faculty.
