Updated Jan. 8
Sang Hea Kil, a former professor of justice studies at San Jose State University, is seeking to reverse the university’s decision to fire her over pro-Palestinian activism.
The university’s president informed Kil in late November of her termination for policy violations stemming from her protest efforts on campus.
Kil is believed to be the first tenured faculty member of a public university to lose her job in connection to pro-Palestinian advocacy, according to the American Association of University Professors. Kil has stated on social media that she is moving forward with arbitration in an effort to get her job back.
She was found to have violated SJSU and California State University policies during multiple pro-Palestinian events: A February 2024 protest that shut down a Jewish studies professor’s guest lecture, a May 2024 rally and a May 2024 encampment on campus.
In an interview published in early January, Kil told Mondoweiss, an anti-Zionist website, that there is no arbitration date yet but that she feels confident that she will win due to lack of evidence.
“They brought nothing but a parade of witnesses that was all hearsay and gossip,” Kil told Mondoweiss.
Kil, who served as SJSU’s faculty adviser of Students for Justice in Palestine, did not respond to J.’s multiple requests for comment.
Other actions may follow arbitration. In September, as SJSU administrators weighed the decision to fire Kil, an attorney who represented Kil warned of a potential legal challenge.
“In terminating Professor Kil, SJSU sets a dangerous precedent for the future of free speech on college campuses and sharply erodes the protections and purpose of tenure,” attorney Rebecca Brown wrote in a letter to the university. “Stormer Renick & Dai LLP strongly urges SJSU to take into serious consideration the legal impact and implications of its decision to terminate Professor Kil.”
While on paid leave, Kil was investigated by the university. In June 2025, she was informed she would be fired for policy violations. Kil appealed the decision. In October, a faculty hearing committee concluded that she had violated the university’s time, place and manner policy and behaved in a manner that violated SJSU’s professional responsibility standards for faculty while engaging in pro-Palestinian campus activism.
The faculty hearing committee then unanimously agreed that Kil’s paid suspension was punishment enough and recommended the university take no disciplinary action against her.
However, SJSU President Cynthia Teniente-Matson rejected the committee’s recommendation and terminated Kil.
In the six-page letter to Kil in November that detailed her decision, Teniente-Matson noted that Kil demonstrated a “consistent pattern” and intent to continually violate policy in the future.
“It is on the issue of your repeated and wanton violation of policy that I am most concerned, as there is no evidence that you would follow policy in the future. In fact, by your own admission, you believe you have done nothing wrong, and that violations — sustained by a group of your own peers — are baseless,” Teniente-Matson wrote.
Jeffrey Blutinger, director of Jewish studies at Cal State Long Beach, told J. that he’s relieved Kil is finally being held accountable.
His guest lecture at SJSU on Feb. 19, 2024, was the one cut short amid an intense protest outside the classroom where he was speaking
“This wasn’t a question of engaging in pro-Palestinian advocacy. She attacked the classroom. Because of her, students had to be evacuated by the police,” Blutinger said.
Linda Landau, an SJSU lecturer, had invited Blutinger to speak to her class.
“They were yelling ‘death to Jews, death to Israel,’” Landau recalled of the protest outside her classroom. Landau took a photo of a protester’s sign with the words “we don’t want peace,” and later noticed Kil was standing next to the sign.
Kil told Mondoweiss that “death to Jews” was never shouted though many witnesses had “repeated that lie.”
“The decibel level was outrageous. We couldn’t hear ourselves think,” Landau told J.
Police escorted Blutinger, Landau, the students and others out of the building as protesters filled a hallway outside, disrupting several classrooms, Blutinger said.
The faculty hearing committee determined that Kil intended to disrupt Blutinger’s lecture and encouraged students to join her.
“I have a right to teach. I have a right to speak. And she took that away from me,” Blutinger said, asserting that the administration initially didn’t do much about the incident.
“The early response of the administration was really, really weak. They took no action against Kil until May [2024],” Blutinger said.
Kil was placed on paid leave that May amid an investigation of her actions.
Blutinger wonders whether the current federal investigation into widespread antisemitism across the CSU system factored into SJSU’s decision to ultimately fire Kil.
Philip Heller, an associate professor of computer science at SJSU, was in the classroom with Blutinger when protesters disrupted the lecture. Heller described the episode as traumatic and, since then, has been permanently excused from teaching.
For Heller, the main point in Teniente-Matson’s decision was Kil’s apparent lack of remorse for the harm that was done. “I applaud the president’s decision to do this. It wasn’t clear that she would.”