The School of the Art Institute in Chicago (SAIC) has placed an art therapy professor on leave for a simple exercise: imagining a treatment plan for a queer Arab woman. The lesson? In authoritarian times, even our creativity is surveilled.

Meanwhile, just steps away from SAIC lies the Obama Presidential Center, a beacon of hope and pluralism. Yet it remains a reminder that such ideals must be fought for, not just celebrated.

The rot of control works by first caging the mind. What’s possible is suddenly constrained; imagination, once free, becomes a threat to the status quo.

As we stand between these worlds, one where art therapy and progressive thought are stifled, and another that promises but fails to deliver, the battle for our minds continues.