Tenured California professor fired over Gaza protest wins job back

Arbitrator rules California State University system violated law when it dismissed Sang Hea Kil, who now plans to sue

A tenured professor who was fired last year over her pro-Palestinian activism has won her job back and is suing her university over the termination.

Last November, Sang Hea Kil, a justice studies professor at San José State University in California, became the first tenured faculty member to be dismissed from a US public university following nationwide campus protests over Israel’s enduring war in Gaza. After several appeals, an arbitrator last week ruled that the California State University system had violated the law and ordered it to reinstate her. Kil had previously filed a lawsuit against CSU, which it accused of “discriminatory and retaliatory attempts to silence her”.