Arbitrator Orders Prof Fired for Palestine Activism Reinstated

An arbitrator ruled that Sang Hea Kil, a tenured San José State University professor who was fired in 2025 after participating in pro-Palestinian student protests, should be reinstated, the California Faculty Association announced Monday. The arbitrator deemed Kil’s termination to be an “excessive” punishment and said it should be reduced to a one-month unpaid suspension, according to the news release. Kil was the first tenured full professor to be fired for pro-Palestinian advocacy.

The arbitrator recommended the one-month suspension due to “interference with another faculty member’s delivery of a lecture that Dr. Kil and others found objectionable and Dr. Kil’s misadvising students about a rule she could or should have known about,” CFA president Margarita Berta-Ávila wrote in the news release. The decision comes seven months after a Faculty Hearing Committee made up of San José State faculty with “no personal stake in the issues” also determined that termination was not warranted in Kil’s case.

“CFA is committed to academic freedom for all faculty, and we could not let such an administrative overreach go unchallenged,” Berta-Ávila wrote. “Dr. Kil has been a staunch advocate for her students’ fight against the genocide in Gaza. She has fiercely defended her students’ right to speak freely on these issues and has herself been critical of right-wing interests interfering with constitutional rights and academic freedom across the nation.”

A spokesperson for San José State declined to comment on “ongoing personnel matters.” Kil did not respond to a request for comment Monday.