Israeli Student Files Lawsuit Alleging Antisemitism, Discrimination at School of the Art Institute of Chicago

CHICAGO (Chicago Tribune/TNS) — The Israeli-American student enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago sought a world-class education in art therapy, but instead claims she faced a pattern of antisemitic discrimination and harassment there, according to a federal lawsuit recently filed in Chicago against the private art and design college.

Master’s degree student Shiran Canel — an Israeli American Jew in her 30s who lives in the Chicago area — alleges the school discriminated against her during an admissions interview and then intentionally subjected her to a hostile environment following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. This included a professor modifying a course assignment “for the purpose of harassing” and intentionally targeting her, the complaint said.

Canel’s lawsuit, which also claims the school allowed “hateful anti-Israeli and antisemitic rhetoric to flourish,” comes as colleges and universities around the country grapple with mounting accusations of antisemitism — as well as Islamophobia — amid the Israel-Hamas war.

The School of the Art Institute said in a statement that officials would not comment on pending litigation.

“The school strongly condemns antisemitism and any discrimination based on religion, nationality, or any other aspect of a person’s identity,” according to the statement. “We have policies in place that prohibit discrimination, harassment and retaliation, and the school is unequivocally committed to providing a safe and welcoming learning environment for all of our students, faculty and staff.”

Canel, who declined to be interviewed by the Tribune, said in a statement that her case is particularly salient given the “upsurge of antisemitic discrimination in higher education institutions more broadly.”

“I am determined to shed light on this issue, not just for me but for everyone who faces discrimination,” the statement said. “I study art therapy, which is supposed to be about care. Hate of any form has no place in the classroom.”

The climate has spurred several prominent college and university leaders around the country to recently resign under fire. Harvard President Claudine Gay quit last Tuesday following backlash against her testimony during a congressional hearing on antisemitism on college campuses last month, as well as plagiarism accusations.

Hedge-fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who led a campaign for Gay’s removal, has been calling for the resignation of Penny Pritzker — the head of Harvard’s governing board and sister of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker — as well as the rest of the board. Politico recently reported that Penny Pritzker is not resigning, according to a Harvard spokesperson.

The University of Pennsylvania’s president stepped down last month after being grilled at the congressional hearing; the chairman of the Ivy League school’s board of trustees quit too.

During that hearing, a professor of history and Jewish studies noted that “the antisemitism igniting on college campuses today is not new.”

“It is part of a long history of antisemitism in our nation’s colleges, just one manifestation of the trajectory of antisemitism in American life,” said Pamela Nadell, director of the Jewish Studies Program at American University.

‘How Can I Be Safe?’

Canel’s lawsuit claims the antisemitic discrimination at the School of the Art Institute began during her admissions process, when she applied to the master of arts in art therapy and counseling program for fall 2023.

Instead of a faculty panel interview, which the complaint describes as the school’s “mandatory interview process,” she was interviewed by one faculty member whose questions centered on Canel’s ethnicity and background. This included how she might handle interacting with a Palestinian colleague and “whether the upcoming birth of her second child would undermine her ability to handle the rigors of the program,” according to the lawsuit.

“Shiran responded to the interviewer’s inappropriate questions fairly and honestly, explaining that she harbored no prejudice against Arabs or Palestinians and would have no trouble working collaboratively in a diverse classroom environment,” the complaint said.

Instead of talking about Canel’s interest in art therapy or a piece of artwork in her portfolio that she had designated for discussion per the school’s instructions, the interviewer focused on one painting of Jerusalem, “which was only used to further hound Shiran about her Israeli nationality,” the lawsuit said.

Her application was denied and she appealed, sharing her description of the interview process and concerns that her denial was a result of antisemitic discrimination, the complaint said. The school reversed its decision after “engaging outside counsel” to conduct an investigation of the process.

The school granted Canel admission for fall 2023, and the School of the Art Institute shared that the process had not followed the school’s policy or expectations but would not provide a written summary or report of its review, according to the complaint.

Canel enrolled at the school but “would quickly learn that SAIC’s commitment of nondiscrimination has a silent but robust exception for Jews and Israelis,” the lawsuit said.

After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel — in which roughly 1,200 Israelis were killed and 240 taken hostage, and which thrust the region into an ongoing war — the school, its faculty and much of the student body “responded by increasing the volume and intensity of their anti-Israel rhetoric and protests,” the complaint said.

Roughly a week following the act of terror, an associate professor at the school posted an anti-Israeli rant on social media that drew international headlines.

“Israelis are pigs. Savages. Very very bad people. Irredeemable excrement,” said the post, though the professor apologized the next day on social media. “The propaganda has been downright evil. After the past week, if your eyes aren’t open to the crimes against humanity that Israel is committing and has committed for decades, and will continue to commit, then I suggest you open them. It’s disgusting and grotesque.”

The lawsuit said Canel shared with a school leader the many ways the Hamas attack had had an impact on her: Her friend’s younger sister was killed at a large gathering in Israel, her rabbi’s nephew was killed in combat, and her parents living at the northern border were preparing for the possibility of further escalation of violence.

Canel wrote to several SAIC leaders and shared that professor’s social media message, asking if she was safe attending school at SAIC, the complaint said.

“Violent words often lead to actual violence. How can I be safe?” Canel asked them, according to the complaint.

“Despite Shiran’s repeated attempts to gain some measure of security from SAIC, the school never responded,” the lawsuit said. “As far as Shiran knows, SAIC took no action to address the concern regarding her safety on campus.”

In mid-November, two faculty members announced they would be combining morning and afternoon classes to “create a communal space for all of us to hold each other accountable through art, writing, and witness reading,” the lawsuit said. Canel wrote to her class that she would not attend this “communal space,” expressing fears to faculty that discussion would center on the Middle East and the session “resembled a medieval anti-Jewish ‘disputation,’” the lawsuit said.

Canel’s professor and another faculty member in a call told Canel they “would do their best to not allow class time to devolve in the manner Shiran feared it would,” and Canel agreed to participate, the lawsuit said.

“Nevertheless, the joint class spiraled precisely as Shiran feared,” the complaint said. “One classmate launched into a diatribe describing her hate and anger toward those who reject her narrative of an ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

The faculty members “sat silently, making no effort to curb the very behavior they promised to Shiran would not occur in class,” the complaint said. “Shiran too sat silently, stunned that her professors would so blatantly mislead her.”

Formal Investigation

Around the same time, another student working with Canel on a project that included a presentation about Hebrew and Arabic calligraphy announced she would not work with Canel because she was “simply unable to work closely with any individual who denies the genocide so clearly taking place before us,” the lawsuit said.

The student informed Canel that the class’s professor “graciously offered to allow us to split our presentation in half enabling us to present individually rather than jointly,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges the school and the professor facilitated the other student’s “discriminatory refusal” to work with Canel, and the presentation suffered.

The professor gave Canel a failing mark on “professionalism: collegial and interpersonal skills” on the presentation as well as a final peer evaluation, the complaint said.

“The feedback shared by Shiran’s classmates revealed their bias against her,” the lawsuit said. “Some classmates expressly acknowledged that ‘most of (their) feedback has to do with outside factors.’”

“Overall, it seems that there was some discomfort during your presentation,” her professor added, according to the lawsuit.

By mid-November, Canel had submitted several complaints to SAIC faculty and leaders “regarding the increasing harassment and hostility,” the lawsuit said. In early December, she informed SAIC attorneys that she wanted to “initiate a formal process to investigate her claims of discrimination by SAIC faculty,” including her professor.

Two days later, her professor announced a change to the class’s final assignment 10 days before it was due, the lawsuit said. The assignment instructed the class to review images provided by the professor — “many of which were explicitly about Israelis,” the lawsuit said.

“Outrageously, although not surprisingly, the material was uniquely targeted at Shiran,” the lawsuit added.

The assignment explained that images in one part “contained ‘depictions of gun, violence, truma (sic), displacement and colonization from children’s view,’” the lawsuit said.

“Here, again, (the professor) chose a collection of drawings … which pertained exclusively to the Israeli military and Israeli soldiers engaged in seemingly senseless violence against Gazan families and children, even smiling while shooting,” the lawsuit said.

According to the lawsuit, a preface to the assignment included the statement: “As therapists, we don’t censor what clients bring to the sessions. We must stay impartial. Often, we encounter clients’ cultures, upbringing, experiences, values and belief systems that are very dierent (sic) from our own. Sometimes we can also work with clients’ experiences/backgrounds that are ‘too close to home’ and we need to deal with our own complicated feelings, internalized racism …etc. … Can you keep it professional and still empathize with clients even when the content of their art upsets or triggers you?”

The sudden change in assignment and “selection of an overwhelming amount of images about Israelis was a transparently deliberate effort to further harass and isolate Shiran, who had just days before requested a formal investigation into (her professor’s) discriminatory behavior precisely on this basis,” the lawsuit said.

After Canel told SAIC lawyers she would “seek emergency legal relief if the offensive material was not retracted,” SAIC directed the professor to remove one part of the assignment in mid-December; but the professor “found ways to continue targeting Shiran and discriminating against her,” the lawsuit said.

Rising Antisemitism

The school includes about 75 Jewish undergraduate students and 20 graduate students, roughly 3% of the student body, according to Hillel International, a Jewish organization at the school.

Charles Cohen, executive director of Metro Chicago Hillel, said he’s aware of Canel’s lawsuit.

“Hopefully we can come to a resolution that best meets the needs of Jewish students at School of the Art Institute of Chicago,” he said.

Cohen described other troubling events allegedly targeting Jewish students at the School of the Art Institute prior to Canel’s enrollment, which were also cited in the lawsuit.

In 2018, a Jewish student asked whether matzah or kosher food would be available in the school cafeteria during Passover, the lawsuit said.

“The school responded that there wouldn’t be and indicated that advertising kosher food may make some students uncomfortable,” the lawsuit said.

That same year, a teacher allegedly used antisemitic language during class, including the phrase “dirty Jew,” according to the lawsuit.

“We’ve tried in different ways to work with the administration over the years to address these issues when they’ve come up,” Cohen added. ”Unfortunately, at SAIC there have been several incidents over the past few years and it’s been much more substantial, much more visible since Oct. 7. These are patterns that we’ve seen on many of our campuses at Hillels across North America.”

The lawsuit argues SAIC — which has received “millions of dollars” in government grants and contract revenue over the past several years — violated the Illinois Human Rights Act and Title VI, which bars discrimination by institutions and programs receiving federal financial assistance.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and “injunctive relief preventing (the school) and its agents” from policies and practices that discriminate against Jewish or Israeli students, which could include terminating employees responsible for antisemitic discrimination and expelling students who engage in discriminatory or antisemitic conduct.

“Shiran wanted to attend SAIC to explore how she could use art education to make a positive difference in the world,” said her attorney Steven Blonder, with the Chicago law firm Much Shelist. “She deserves the opportunity to learn without fearing for her safety.”

Nationwide, antisemitism has spiked following the Israel-Hamas war. The Anti-Defamation League tracked roughly 300 antisemitic incidents in a little over two weeks after the Hamas attack, a 388% increase over the same period in 2022. An ADL report in November said 73% of Jewish college students surveyed reported seeing or experiencing some form of antisemitism since the start of the school year.

Several Illinois colleges and universities have tried to address this surge in hate targeting Jews, as well as a parallel rise in anti-Arab sentiment and Islamophobia on college campuses.

Northwestern University President Michael Schill in November announced a new advisory committee designed to prevent antisemitism and hate on campus, adding in a statement that he has “heard from students and parents who feel unsafe” since the Israel-Hamas war began.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Robert Jones said in a statement in late October that, while most vigils and protests amid the war had been peaceful, there were events “where actions and words of some participants were seen as calls for violence.”

“Expressions of antisemitism or Islamophobia or hatred and harm against any individual or groups are antithetical to our university values,” the statement said. “We are a university that prides itself on its efforts to foster inclusion and respect, and we condemn these messages that are contrary to our mutual values of inclusion and tolerance.”