JVP’s Academic Council Condemns SJSU Firing of Tenured Professor Sang Hea Kil

10 December 2025

San José State University:

President Cynthia Teniente-Matson, [email protected] 
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Vincent Del Casino, [email protected] 
Interim Senior Associate Vice President, University Personnel Jeanne Durr, [email protected]
SJSU Academic Senate:  [email protected]
President, California Faculty Association, San Jose State University Ray Buyco [email protected]

California State University: 

Board of Trustees: ​​[email protected]
Chancellor Mildred Garcia : [email protected]
Academic Senate of the California State University, [email protected]
CSU Academic Senate Faculty Association President Margarita Berta-Avila, [email protected]
General Counsel, Kristina Strottman, [email protected]
General Counsel, Marc Mootchnic, [email protected] 

CC: AAUP Committee A on Academic Freedom, [email protected]

Dear President Teniente-Matson and colleagues,

The Academic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace condemns your decision to overturn the recommendations of the October 23, 2025 San Jose State University Faculty Hearing Committee (FHC) that Professor Sang Hea Kil “should not receive any of the three possible disciplinary sanctions listed under Education Code 89535 [dismiss, demote, suspend].” “The committee believes Dr. Kil has already endured significant negative consequences, including the burden of preparing her defense in this matter and not being able to teach or perform the duties for which she has been hired.”

Your claim that you are firing Professor Kil, a tenured Full Professor of Justice Studies, for allegedly violating the Time, Place, and Manner (TPM) policies adopted by CSU campuses in Spring 2024 is egregious at best. Those policies in themselves are fig leaves covering the university’s efforts to quash academic freedom when it comes to speech about Palestinian rights.  The FHC concluded that violating the TPM policies does not rise to the level that would warrant the termination of employment as an appropriate punishment for a professor.

Moreover, FHC found no merit in the politically motivated accusations against Professor Sang of inciting violence, harassing fellow community members, violating the privacy of her colleagues, and exploiting students. Accusations were made, found meritless and yet still used by you to justify firing her. This utter disregard for established facts has no place in a university, nowhere less so than in a disciplinary hearing.   Furthermore, you have used the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which conflates pro-Palestine speech with antisemitism, to make those accusations.  The IHRA definition is used to suppress free speech that is nonetheless being peddled by the Trump administration.. The FHC also expressed concern that an outside group, namely Hillel Silicon Valley, may have pressured you and the Provost to initiate these accusations. 

Your decision to overturn the FHC findings is nothing less than an undermining of faculty governance and abandonment of your responsibility to preserve and protect academic freedom. This dismissal falls right in line with the Trump Administration’s efforts to destroy academic freedom and install right-wing agendas as obligatory speech. Setting this sort of horrific precedent will give SJSU the shameful distinction of taking aim at tenured faculty for expressing their political views, as is their right. 

We demand that Dr. Kil be reinstated to her position and allowed to resume her role as a highly valued member of the SJSU community and academic institutions across the United States and elsewhere. 

Sincerely,

Dr. Jonah S. Rubin, Sr. Manager of Campus Organizing on behalf of the Academic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace