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.<\/p>\n
Last November, Sang Hea Kil<\/a>, a justice studies professor at San Jos\u00e9 State University in California, became the first tenured faculty member to be dismissed from a US public university following nationwide campus protests over Israel\u2019s 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 \u201cdiscriminatory and retaliatory attempts to silence her\u201d.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the university declined to comment on personnel matters.<\/p>\n Kil said she was \u201crelieved\u201d to get her job back but determined to keep speaking out for Palestinian rights and free speech.<\/p>\n \u201cThe arbitration hearing outcome in my favor shows that the first amendment of the constitution is not dead at San Jos\u00e9 State University,\u201d she told the Guardian. \u201cWhich was in question when they targeted me for merely showing up to anti-genocide events on my campus to support students protesting the Israeli destruction of Gaza and its people.\u201d<\/p>\n Kil was one of several university professors and staff to be suspended<\/a>, investigated<\/a> and in some cases dismissed or forced out in connection to the wave of pro-Palestinian protests that swept US campuses in the first year of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza. She was the first tenured professor to be dismissed from a public university since Steven Salaita<\/a>, who was fired in 2014 from the University of Illinois over a series of social media posts critical of Israel\u2019s bombing of Gaza that year.<\/p>\n In a lawsuit filed in May with the superior court of California, county of Santa Clara, Kil argued the state university system violated employment law as well as the first amendment.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is one of the most egregious and extreme examples of repression of pro-Palestine speech that we\u2019ve seen,\u201d Rebecca Brown, one of Kil\u2019s attorneys, said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit on Monday. \u201cThis is a tenured professor who was fired over a free speech activity \u2013 a punishment that\u2019s usually reserved for professors who engage in conduct like sexual assault or physical violence.\u201d<\/p>\n