A professor at a tony Chicago art school deliberately altered a final assignment so that it “uniquely targeted” a Jewish Israeli student who was filing a formal complaint about months of alleged harassment, a new lawsuit alleges.
Shiran, a first-year student in the art therapy and counseling master’s program at the School of Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) was subjected to “an endless wave of hate, discrimination and exclusion” on campus, a Dec. 22 filing seen by The Post read.
After weeks of escalating hostility, the mother of two informed SAIC’s outside counsel in early December that she wanted to pursue a formal investigation into her various complaints against her peers and faculty, the suit states.
Two days after Shiran informed the attorney of her decision, however, professor Sandie Yi — one of the faculty members Shiran complained to the school about and who is also named as a defendant in the suit — changed her final course assignment in a way that “uniquely targeted Shiran,” the suit alleges. .
While the original assignment asked students to write about their own fieldwork interests and work through a hypothetical art therapy scenario, the new version of Part One asks the class to reflect on “‘difficult conversations'” they’ve had throughout the semester, according to materials seen by The Post.
“‘Difficult conversation'” was a phrase Yi often used “as a euphemism to refer to discussions about Israel,” the lawsuit alleges.
Part Two of the assignment required students to review two drawing image banks to assess their readiness to address a specific topic in art therapy.
An Art Institute of Chicago professor targeted an Israeli Jewish student. The assignments included drawings of child abuse featuring the Hebrew language, according to the lawsuit.
The image bank featured four drawings of child abuse — including one showing an Israeli father and son speaking in Hebrew speech bubbles, materials seen by The Post show.
“You bad boy!” the father’s speech bubble goes off, while the son responds, “Stop it, dad, this is insulting,” Shiran claims.
One of the other paintings also features writing in an unknown language.
“Of all the languages in the world, why do you choose [Hebrew]? Two days after Shiran filed an official complaint?” Shiran’s lawyer, Steven Blonder, complained to The Post Wednesday.
“There is no defensible educational basis for that as part of the school curriculum and school examinations,” he said, admitting that he did not know what second language was being highlighted.
Shiran was more troubled by the second image bank, which asked students to engage with drawings made by Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip during the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza war, assignments seen by The Post showed.
The assignment also included drawings made by Palestinian children in Gaza during the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza war.
The five paintings — which show Gaza children and their families harmlessly targeted by Israeli soldiers, tanks and helicopters — were set to be included in a canceled 2011 exhibit at the Oakland Children’s Art Museum, according to the Huffington Post.
Yi’s decision to change the finale to include “a large amount of images about Israel” was a “deliberate effort to further harass and alienate Shiran” following her formal complaint of discrimination at SAIC, the lawsuit alleges.
“[The assignment is] the most outrageous act of discrimination I think I’ve seen in a long time,” Blonder told The Post.
The second part of the assignment was eventually removed after Shiran reported it to the school’s outside attorney — but Yi still sent emails to the class asking them to report their frustration about the scrapped part to the administration, the suit continued.
In the lawsuit, Shiran accused SAIC of violating the Civil Rights Act, the Illinois Human Rights Act and even failing to live up to its own promise of an open and conducive learning environment by repeatedly failing to address its anti-Jewish and anti-Israel concerns. feelings on campus, the filing states.
The second part of the assignment uses images depicting Israel attacking Palestine.
“This school has a policy on its books, it needs to enforce it in an evenhanded way,” Blonder said.
“It’s one thing to have a policy on the books, one thing to support empty words, and another thing to live up to that ambition,” he added.
“We are aware of the complaint. We respect the privacy interests of students and employees and do not comment on pending litigation,” SAIC told The Post via email.
“The school strongly condemns antisemitism and any discrimination based on religion, nationality, or any aspect of a person’s identity. We have a policy that prohibits discrimination, harassment and retaliation, and the School is firmly committed to providing a safe and welcoming learning environment for all our students, faculty and staff,” he stressed.
In addition to the sad final assignment, Shiran’s lawsuit includes months of alleged antisemitism at the hands of her peers and faculty that escalated following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in southern Israel.
As Shiran tries to cope with the effects of the attack – including concern for her parents, who live in northern Israel and are under threat from Hezbollah in Lebanon – she also faces “pervasive anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric” from her fellow students and faculty. , according to the filing.
The second part of the assignment was eventually removed after it was reported.
The troubling material included media referring to Israel’s retaliatory ground attack on Gaza as “genocide” — a choice of vocabulary that Shiran personally objects to — as well as social media posts from professor Mika Tosca calling Israel “pigs” and “people which is very bad. .”
A few weeks later, the lawsuit alleges, Yi and professor Deborah Ann DelSignore were charged “blatantly [misled]” Shiran to participate in a class discussion that turned into a “diatribe” critical of Israel, according to the filing.
In another incident, another student in Yi’s class refused to work with Shiran on a joint presentation because “he ‘couldn’t work closely with any individual who denied the genocide was so blatantly happening in front of us. [in Gaza].’”
Yi – who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit – also “continues to facilitate additional biased student-led conversations expressing hatred of Israelis,” the suit alleges.
The drawing from the Palestinian child was originally supposed to be included in a canceled exhibit at the Oakland Children’s Art Museum in 2011.
During this time, Shiran sent multiple communications to faculty members and administration — including one in which he asked “Violent words often lead to actual violence. How can I feel safe at SAIC?” – lawsuit.
All of these letters, however, went unanswered until Nov. 17, when the school’s Title IX office informed Shiran that an outside attorney was looking into her complaint.
In her lawsuit filed last month, Shiran is now seeking injunctive relief preventing SAIC from discriminating against Jewish and/or Israeli students, as well as monetary damages and attorneys’ fees, the filing said.
Complaints like Shiran’s are part of a “larger trend,” Blonder told The Post.
“[Oct. 7] brought a lot of antisemitism to the fore, things that might have happened behind closed doors before …it’s not OK anymore. And it’s now front and center and it’s an issue that needs to be addressed,” he said of the ongoing conversation about antisemitism on college campuses.
According to the lawsuit, the drawings were “a transparent, deliberate effort to further harass and isolate Shiran” from the professor.
The way SAIC handled Shiran’s concerns over his safety, he added, was a “stain” on the prestigious institution’s reputation.
The lawsuit could also have implications for Shiran’s personal life: Her father-in-law is a member of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Board of Trustees, and she and her husband were named alongside her father-in-law on the museum’s website for contributing to the purchase of a 17th-century painting in 2018.
Blonder declined to comment on the impact of Shiran’s experience at SAIC on his father-in-law’s relationship with the institute but confirmed that his client plans to pursue his master’s degree at the school.
“[Shiran] enroll for a world-class education in art therapy. He has paid his tuition and he intends to continue,” he stressed.
“He wants to make a difference, he wants to help people. But he wants to be able to enjoy the program like other students,” he added.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
