San José State Professor Fired Over Campus Gaza Protests To Win Back Job

Kil, the former faculty adviser for Students for Justice in Palestine, is one of the first tenured professors fired from a public U.S. university over on-campus demonstrations in connection with the recent protests.

“I feel what happened to me was to silence any pro-Palestinian solidarity in academia and also in this nation,” Kil told KQED on Monday. “I fought as hard as I possibly can with the support and solidarity of my colleagues and social justice groups. We won, and it’s a victory for academic freedom on campus and pro-Palestine speech.”

The university declined to comment, citing “ongoing personnel matters.”

Ultimately, the arbitrator stated that while the California State University system was able to meet the burden of proving that Kil engaged in unprofessional conduct, it could not prove a failure or refusal to perform her job duties as a professor.

Moreover, the third-party review concluded that dismissal was an “excessive and disproportionate” sanction.

“To determine a proportionate sanction for such misconduct, the surrounding circumstances, the harm that resulted, and the likelihood of recurrence must be considered,” arbitrator Howard Pearlman wrote.

According to faculty review documents and arbitration hearing records obtained by KQED, the case against Kil began in February 2024, when she planned to attend a public guest lecture by Jeffrey Blutinger, director of the Jewish Studies program at Cal State University Long Beach, on a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.

Aware that some pro-Palestinian students were organizing to protest the event, university administrators, faculty organizers and campus police testified that they had moved the talk to a private classroom less than an hour before the event.

Kil testified that she and several dozen demonstrators who showed up at the library eventually learned of the new location and made their way to the classroom hallway, still unaware that the lecture was no longer public. She said when they were denied entry at the door, the group sat, chanted and stomped.

In April, school officials notified Kil that she was under investigation for allegedly violating school rules around professional responsibility and time, place and manner — policies that govern where and how sanctioned campus protests can take place.

The following month, the university expanded its probe and placed Kil on paid administrative leave for “directing and encouraging” students to join encampments and violate university policies — which Kil and her representation disputed.

After more than a year of suspension, SJSU fired Kil, who then opted for her right to appeal via a panel of her peers to publicly review the university’s case against her — a rarely invoked step. The faculty panel recommended no further sanction beyond the yearlong suspension Kil had already completed.

In late 2025, the university upheld her termination anyway.

According to SJSU’s agreement with its faculty’s union, a five-day arbitration hearing would be Kil’s final chance to appeal her firing. During those March 2026 proceedings, CSU lawyers justified the dismissal by emphasizing the “totality” of her alleged unprofessional conduct and refusal to perform her duties as a professor during the spring events.

Top administrators argued that Kil’s “lack of remorse” indicated a lack of “rehabilitative potential” — something Pearlman told lawyers he “had a hard time believing” given her 17-year employment and clean record. In 2018, the Justice Studies professor earned the College of Health and Human Sciences Department’s lifetime achievement award.

Kil, a self-described “scholar-activist,” and her union representatives alleged that university administrators bypassed standard disciplinary procedure and terminated her.

Her team also argued her punishment was unfair, given examples of other professors who’d received lighter discipline for more serious conduct.

Henry Reichman, California State University, East Bay professor emeritus and academic freedom expert, testified that the “worst thing [Kil] did was engage in noisemaking that was already happening.” He went on to offer a blistering rebuke of the school’s disregard for progressive discipline and tenure, which he said would have a chilling effect on academic freedom and free speech throughout the CSU system.

Though Kil said she’s excited to return to the classroom after two years away, she’s worried for her safety. She said she’s faced backlash, describing hateful graffiti threatening violence against Asians, Jews and Muslims scrawled on her office building.

“People who have been targeted for anti-genocide or pro-Palestine speech, once they’ve been fired, they’re blacklisted,” she said. “If they had won, I would never have gotten an academic job in the U.S.A. ever again.”