The College Fix

Exhibit restrictions ‘troubling violations of … free expression,’ free speech attorney says

A free speech attorney told The College Fix via email the school engaged in “textbook viewpoint discrimination.”

“Now, the school may face sanctions or censure from the American Association of University Professors, a leading nonprofit organization that advocates for academic freedom and shared university governance,” according to ARTnews.

The students’ exhibition also condemned the school’s management of pro-Palestinian protest encampments in May 2024. This included demonstrations near the Art Institute of Chicago museum that resulted in the arrest of 68 protesters, the report states.

Following this incident, students began planning an exhibition for the school’s SITE gallery, which often includes political art. The exhibition was called “School as a Function of Empire.”

The private art school approved the proposal in August. However, the Art School Considerations Committee warned that certain works might need to be removed to comply with the school’s anti-harassment policies, according to ARTnews.

The committee also called to eliminate a community wall intended for viewers to add their own messages, citing it as a “risk” for potential harassment. 

“While a spokesperson for the school maintains that ASC and SAIC did not ‘require the removal of any works from the exhibition,’ the student curators told ARTnews they felt that if they denied ASC’s requests, the show would not be approved to move forward,” the outlet reported.

The exhibition was opened in November, but the community wall was omitted, and trigger warnings indicating sensitive content were posted on the gallery doors.

The decision followed the termination of lecturer Kelly Xi, who used a school printer to photocopy materials for the pro-Palestine exhibit.

She also had used the printer to provide “several students an email list so they could distribute a petition among the student body asking them to support nontenured faculty, as their union prepared to strike amid stalled contract negotiations with the administration,” ARTnews reported.

Xi told The Fix that on the day students released a Strike FAQ and Solidarity Letter backing a fair contract for most teachers, Provost Martin Berger banned her from campus and placed her on leave. She said she suddenly lost access to five years of work, her email, and the ability to contact her students, just two weeks before the semester ended during finals.

Xi also told The Fix, “The leave became a permanent complete bar from Art Institute property on Dec 23,” and her “year-long course for the Spring [was] reassigned.”

“Students see clearly that contract transparency is in their interest, to talk openly about the working conditions they learn in and graduate into, as the incoming labor force in arts education,” Xi said.

She also said students may feel “demoralized” knowing that their most dedicated and involved teachers face uncertainty about future teaching roles, lack health insurance, and have “no job protections or process to raise a grievance.”

SAIC administrators control all communication with staff, students, and their parents, portraying the faculty union as “unwilling partners,” she said. 

Now, the American Association of University Professors is threatening to sanction or censure the school.

Asked about Xi’s dismissal and how the administration reconciles campus policies with academic freedom, SAIC spokesperson Bree Witt told The Fix the school has “provided extensive comments on the matter to other publications who have chosen not to share them.”

Meanwhile, Jessie Appleby, program counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, condemned the school’s decision to place restrictions on the students’ exhibit in an email to The College Fix.

“An institution, like SAIC, that promises freedom of expression and academic freedom may not restrict student or faculty expression merely because it dislikes the message expressed. That is textbook viewpoint discrimination,” she said.

Additionally, “The restrictions placed on the ‘School as a Function of Empire’ exhibit are troubling violations of SAIC’s commitment to free expression because the restrictions were based on the content and viewpoint of the exhibit,” she said.

The school’s policy states that “Students are free to examine and discuss all questions of interest to them and to express opinions individually or as part of an organized group, both publicly and privately,” according to SAIC’s handbook.

Appleby also expressed concern over SAIC’s termination of Xi, suggesting it may have been driven by her political expression and union involvement.

She said investigating and firing a faculty member for her external political activities explicitly breaches SAIC’s commitment to academic freedom.

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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Students in class at SAIC; School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)/Youtube

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