Dive Brief:
- The University of Illinois at Urbana will not renew the contract of a part-time faculty member who is a former member of the radical leftist Symbionese Liberation Army.
- The American Association of University Professors is questioning whether the university made the decision for political reasons, based on media reports about the teacher, James Kilgore, and his background, rather than for academic reasons.
- Kilgore is a global studies lecturer and part-time faculty member of the Center for African Studies. He was involved in a 1975 bank robbery where a customer was killed, though Kilgore didn’t pull the trigger. He fled to Africa and served six years in prison in California after 27 years.
Dive Insight:
It seems hard to believe that the university did not know that Kilgore’s background would make him a controversial figure on campus. The News-Gazette reports that a landscape architecture professor at the university, William Sullivan, is circulating a petition demanding that the school reverse its decision. Kilgore’s contract expires Aug. 15. He’s worked as a part-time faculty member since 2012, and as a part-time grant writer since 2010. The AAUP is arguing that even though Kilgore doesn’t have tenure, he should receive a written explanation for his dismissal and should have access to a grievance process.