San José State Ordered To Reinstate Professor Sang Hea Kil After Gaza Protest Dismissal

San José State University has been ordered to reinstate tenured professor Sang Hea Kil after an arbitrator found her dismissal was “excessive and disproportionate.”

“The San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed an arbitrator’s order overturning the termination of San José State University (SJSU) Professor Dr”

CAIR California

Democracy Now! said Kil was fired after participating in three on-campus demonstrations over the war in Gaza and after serving as faculty adviser to Students for Justice in Palestine.

CAIR California

CAIR-SFBA said the arbitrator’s order requires SJSU to reinstate Dr. Kil with full back pay after a nearly two-year fight over discipline tied to her involvement in pro-Palestinian student activism.

CAIR-SFBA added that Kil was suspended in 2024 and later terminated following allegations tied to campus protests over Gaza, and that a Faculty Hearing Committee had previously found that no discipline was warranted.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that an arbitrator ruled the professor fired in 2023 for her involvement in campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza must be reinstated, according to the California Faculty Association.

The Chronicle said the arbitrator reduced the punishment from termination to a one-month unpaid suspension, and it described the union’s view that the dismissal was excessive.

Democracy Now!

The Chronicle quoted CFA’s statement that “We have never seen such an overreach in punishing faculty,” and it said the arbitrator’s decision to impose any punishment was due to Kil’s “interference with another faculty member’s delivery of a lecture.”

CAIR-SFBA said Kil hailed the ruling as a “victory for academic freedom on campus and pro-Palestine speech,” and it quoted Kil saying, “What happened to me was part of a broader effort to silence pro-Palestinian solidarity in academia.”

CAIR-SFBA said the case reflects a broader, systemic climate across higher education, in which faculty, students, and advocates for Palestinian rights face heightened institutional scrutiny, doxxing, and discipline for their speech.

“An arbitrator has ruled that a San Jose State University professor who was fired in 2023 for her involvement in campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza must be reinstated, according to the California Faculty Association”

San Francisco Chronicle

In a statement, CAIR-SFBA Executive Director Zahra Billoo said the ruling is a significant victory for academic freedom but “exposes the extreme, retaliatory measures universities are willing to take to suppress pro-Palestinian speech.”

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that CFA said it has been challenging CSU policies related to campus protests and faculty privacy, and it said the union is backing Assembly Bill 2551 to strengthen student participation rights.

The College Fix said the school fired Kil after she violated SJSU and California State University policies during “a February 2024 protest that shut down a Jewish studies professor’s guest lecture, a May 2024 rally and a May 2024 encampment on campus,” and it said the arbitrator still sanctioned her for disrupting another faculty member’s lecture and misadvising students.