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However, he had to work with people who didn't love him, poor baby.

You mischaracterize the record. The emails indicate that they did not want to work with him. His crime? He allowed the publication of an "ID" paper. As the email traffic clearly indicates his work was not the issue. The issue was, as hinted by the NCSE, which is not the SI, to destroy the paper. That should have been a cakewalk in their eyes by doing what is normally done publish an argument against the evidence or conclusions. Instead, they go to extremes to "get" the person that allowed such an affront to them. The email traffic certainly indicates that.

His crime? He allowed the publication of an "ID" paper.

Nice whitewash. Follow:

Sternberg met Meyer at a conference and discussed putting his work in the journal
It was a previously discredited argument.
It was not reviewed by an associate editor, Sternberg did it all himself, not letting the other more qualified (despite his claims of being the most qualified) people review it.
It did not go through the review process.
Sternberg refuses to reveal the identity of the alleged outside reviewers of the paper (they were likely Discovery Institute people if there were indeed any at all).
The journal staff said they would not have allowed it to be published if they had seen it.

Basically, the scientists at the SI were afraid Sternberg would embarrass them and the SI as he did the people at the journal. I'm sure the fact that he deliberately went behind people's backs and didn't follow procedure doesn't help much either. Scientists are very protective of their reputations and don't want to associate with anyone who might ruin it.

IOW, he ruined his own reputation. He shouldn't be able to play victim when he caused his own troubles.

In fact, reputation and standing in the discipline are requirements to be an RA at the SI. Having lost that is a good enough reason for him to lose his RA status.

The Smithsonian has not been honest enough to hang a sign that says, “No intelligence allowed.” Had they done so, Sternberg may have known better and stayed away. As it stands, we would like to think free inquiry is part and parcel of the game. But the game is, and always will be, stacked when certain world views refuse to lend credence to others.

The bottom line is, we need to get along to some degree. All it requires is tentative expression as opposed to positive. Materialists do not have a completely untenable position. Just as miracles, which are nothing more than temporary physical anomalies, have a .0000001 chance of occurring (as if miracles are somehow “unnatural”), unguided processes have .0000001 chance of producing an intelligible result.

The issue of evolution vs. intelligent design is worthy of open discussion in an academic context. Both have merit. Ben Stein has just tweaked the side who happens to have the upper hand in the courts and universities these days.