{"id":3518,"date":"2026-07-01T19:11:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T19:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=3518"},"modified":"2026-07-01T19:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T19:11:15","slug":"sjsu-professor-fired-for-pro-palestinian-activism-sues-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=3518","title":{"rendered":"SJSU professor fired for pro-Palestinian activism sues university"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sang Hea Kil, the San Jos\u00e9 State University professor who was fired for her pro-Palestinian activism in 2025, is suing the college, alleging the school discriminated and retaliated against her, subjected her to a \u201chostile work environment,\u201d and violated her First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

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The civil rights\u00a0lawsuit, which was filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court in late May, but not announced until Monday, follows an arbitrator\u2019s ruling last week that overturned Kil\u2019s termination, deeming it an \u201cexcessive\u201d punishment for a professor of more than 17 years with no prior disciplinary action. The arbitrator said it should be reduced to a one-month unpaid suspension and awarded her back pay.<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0SJSU must reinstate professor fired over pro-Palestinian activism, arbitrator rules<\/strong><\/p>\n

The lawsuit seeks $10 million in damages and names as defendants the California State University board of trustees, SJSU president Cynthia Teniente-Matson, SJSU Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Vincent Del Casino and former SJSU Interim Senior Associate Vice President for University Personnel, Jeanne Durr.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an incredible victory for free speech, academic freedom, student protest, freedom of assembly and pro-Palestine speech on campus and beyond,\u201d Kil said at a press conference Tuesday outside SJSU\u2019s Martin Luther King Jr. Library to announce her lawsuit and celebrate her reinstatement. \u201cThis is our victory. Let\u2019s use this as a watershed moment to turn the tide against targeted repression on our campus and in this nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement Tuesday, San Jos\u00e9 State University said the campus is aware of Kil\u2019s lawsuit and \u201cstrongly disputes the allegations and will respond and defend itself through the judicial process.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the arbitrator\u2019s findings, the university said SJSU has consistently maintained that no employee \u201chas been or would be subject to disciplinary action for lawfully exercising their First Amendment Rights, including protected speech or expression.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school said the arbitrator \u201cmade no finding that Dr. Kil was disciplined because of their viewpoints or protected speech,\u201d but rather, \u201cfound that discipline was warranted based on their actions, which were substantiated as unprofessional conduct, and reduced only the level of discipline imposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cSpecifically, the arbitrator found that Dr. Kil engaged in unprofessional misconduct for, among other things, participating in efforts to intentionally disrupt a colleague\u2019s classroom lecture and taking actions that clearly violated the University\u2019s time, place, and manner policy. The report noted the \u201cunprofessionalism of such conduct cannot reasonably be disputed,\u201d the university said.<\/p>\n

A tenured professor of justice studies and former faculty adviser for Students for Justice in Palestine, Kil was placed on administrative leave in May 2024 and subsequently fired for \u201crepeated violations of university policies\u201d including directing and encouraging students to violate university policies, engaging in harassing and offensive conduct and comments directed toward colleagues, and targeting at least one colleague for engaging in their work duties by publicly identifying them and posting inflammatory comments and creating a risk of harm to them, according to the university.<\/p>\n

She is widely considered one of the first full-time, tenured professors to be fired from a public U.S. university in connection with the student protests over the war in Gaza that have spread across college campuses nationwide.<\/p>\n

In her lawsuit, Kil said she first came under fire from the university in April 2024. The school informed her she was being investigated for allegedly \u201cdisrupting the university\u2019s business operations and encouraging students to do the same\u201d during a February 19, 2024 campus protest she attended that opposed the appearance of Jewish studies professor, Jeffrey Blutinger, who was speaking about the Israel-Hamas war. An altercation broke out and a another San Jose State professor, Johnathan Roth, was put on administrative leave for allegedly placing a hand on a student protestor during the confrontation. <\/p>\n

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\u201cUndeterred\u201d by the school\u2019s \u201cdiscriminatory attempt to intimidate her,\u201d Kil said in her suit, she later attended a May 8, 2024 sit-in protest held at the university where she criticized the \u201d \u2014 which sets rules on free speech activities on campus to \u201censure the safety and wellbeing\u201d of the school community \u2014 for infringing on free speech.<\/p>\n

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The lawsuit said Kil also told students \u201cit\u2019s not too late\u201d to do \u201can encampment\u201d and later served as the spokesperson for the student\u2019s encampment that began on May 13, 2024. Kil spent three nights at the ten-day student encampment, according to the suit.<\/p>\n

Kil was placed on administrative leave on May 24, 2024 for disrupting the school\u2019s business operations and inciting students to violate university policies, the lawsuit said. She was terminated on June 30, 2025\u00a0for her alleged \u201cdisregard for university policies\u201d including the school\u2019s time, place and manner policy, according to the suit.<\/p>\n

The said her grounds for termination were \u201cunprofessional conduct\u201d and \u201cfailure or refusal to perform the normal and reasonable duties of (her) position.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Kil appealed the decision to a faculty hearing committee, which ultimately determined that the school\u2019s decision to fire Kil was not justified but the university upheld her termination anyway, according to Kil\u2019s lawsuit and the California Faculty Association.<\/p>\n

She subsequently sought arbitration, which was held in March, with the arbitrator overturning the university\u2019s decision last week.<\/p>\n

Kil\u2019s lawsuit also alleges that during the hearing, \u201cSJSU personnel made Islamophobic comments\u201d which she filed a federal Title VI Civil Rights complaint over in November 2025. She said she also found \u201cracist graffiti threatening a mass shooting and referencing Asian, Jewish and Muslim people\u201d on her office building that same month, which she reported to the school and perceived as a threat directed at her, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

In her suit, Kil alleges the university discriminated against her and subjected her to \u201cadverse employment actions\u201d by suspending her, \u201cconducting a sham investigation,\u201d making false statements about her, failing to meaningfully address the racist graffiti directed at her, disregarding the faculty hearing\u2019s findings and terminating her due to her \u201cassociation with Palestinian, Middle Eastern, Arab, and Muslim individuals and her own gender, race and sexual orientation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kil also alleges that the university \u201cknew and should have known\u201d of the discrimination, harassment, hostile work environment and retaliation she suffered, but says the school failed to take action.<\/p>\n

Kil\u2019s discrimination allegations center around the university\u2019s treatment of SJSU professor Roth, who was placed on administrative leave and whom Kil alleges was not fired and instead was allowed to return to his teaching position before quietly retiring.<\/p>\n

\u201cSJSU\u2019s extreme treatment of Dr. Kil stands in sharp and alarming contrast to its treatment of other faculty who do not share her political views, identity, or association with Arab, Muslim and Palestinian individuals,\u201d Kil\u2019s lawsuit alleges. \u201cFor example, Dr. Johnathan Roth \u2014 a white, heterosexual, male professor at SJSU who publicly supports Israel and expresses anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim sentiment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several local community organizations spoke in support of Kil\u2019s reinstatement and expressed concern over her \u201cexcessive\u201d termination and its implications for freedom of speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people who support Palestinian rights or who are Muslim or of the Islamic faith speak out, they face extreme punishments,\u201d said Sean Allen, president of the San Jose\/Silicon Valley NAACP.\u00a0 \u201cAnd when those same individuals are victims of harm, the response from our institutions is too often slow, dismissive, or absent altogether. We saw that double standard play out on this very campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The lawsuit follows an arbitrator’s ruling last week that overturned Kil’s termination, deeming it an \u201cexcessive\u201d punishment for a professor of more than 17 years with no prior disciplinary action and said it should be reduced to a one-month unpaid suspension.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nSJSU professor fired for pro-Palestinian activism sues university - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=3518\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SJSU professor fired for pro-Palestinian activism sues university - 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