This Feb. 5, 2014 file photo shows James Kilgore, a faculty member at the University of Illinois, in Urbana, Ill. The university has rehired Kilgore, a 1970s-era radical, to teach a course next semester. Thomas Bassett, the director of Global Studies at the Urbana-Champaign campus, said Friday, Dec. 5, 2014, that Kilgore's proposal to teach the course "Sweatshops or Flat World Opportunities?” Exploring the new World of Work" was approved this week. Earlier this year the university told Kilgore it would no longer hire him. That followed news-media stories about part-time university work he’d done since his 2009 prison release. (AP Photo/The News-Gazette, Robin Scholz, File) MANDATORY CREDIT
Dive Brief: James Kilgore, a controversial professor with past links to a domestic terrorist group, has been rehired by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to teach a one-credit class next semester. Kilgore, a former member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, will be paid $3,500 as an adjunct lecturer to teach the global studies course starting in March, the Chicago Tribune reported. Also, the university’s Center for African Studies is considering hiring Kilgore for an outreach and fundraising position. Dive Insight: Kilgore could cost the university’s Chicago campus $4.5 million in promised donations from prominent Chicago businessman Richard Hill, who pledged to pull back his donation if Kilgore is hired. He told the Tribune last week that the university’s faculty would “suffer the consequences” if a majority of them didn’t sign a petition against the Kilgore hiring. Kilgore was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army in the 1970s, and he served six and a half years in prison for his conviction on charges of second-degree murder and possession of an explosive device for his role in an armed robbery in 1975 that killed a bank customer. He had worked as a part-time lecturer and researcher for the university from 2010 until early 2014, when his past life was made public and his contract was not renewed.
