Chicago Tribune – by Jodi S. Cohen, Michelle Manchir
In a change of direction, University of Illinois officials paved the way Thursday for convicted felon James Kilgore to again teach on campus, the latest controversial faculty decision at the state school.
Kilgore’s contract was not renewed after his criminal past was the subject of a newspaper story and board members expressed concern about his employment. But on Thursday, U. of I. board members, including Chairman Christopher Kennedy, who once referred to Kilgore as a “domestic terrorist,” decided to allow university officials to rehire Kilgore if they choose.
“We are going to let the (academic) units do what they want to,” Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Phyllis Wise said, referring to a committee report released recently that suggested he be allowed to teach. “We are going to go ahead and follow the recommendations of the report.”
University Of Illinois mulls re-hiring terrorist convicted of murder
This week, the Board of Trustees at the University of Illinois will consider hiring convicted murderer and 1970s-era Symbionese Liberation Army terrorist James Kilgore– for the second time.
Board members discussed Kilgore’s employment Thursday during a closed-door session on the University of Illinois at Chicago campus. The board released a statement after the meeting saying it had “engaged in a robust debate that represented a wide range of divergent viewpoints” regarding Kilgore.
It concluded that the president should develop clear policies regarding hiring decisions of part-time and adjunct faculty, but that in the meantime, campus officials “should continue acting under their existing hiring practices for these types of positions.”
Provost Ilesanmi Adesida will share the news with academic department heads, who can then decide whether to rehire Kilgore, Wise said.
Reached Thursday night, Kilgore praised university officials.
“The university in making this decision, if I am rehired, is recognizing that people can change and that people should be given second chances and that when they prove themselves, they shouldn’t simply be dismissed from their position on the basis of their criminal background or their past,” he said.
Asked if he even wanted to return after what he’d been through there, he said: “I want to work at the university. I love teaching.”
William Sullivan, a Kilgore supporter and professor of landscape architecture at the school, called the university’s action “great news.”
“It’s important to recognize the person he is today and not continue to think that he hasn’t evolved and grown in these 42 years,” Sullivan said. “It’s just exactly the right thing to do.”
Sullivan is a member of the Friends of Kilgore group, which Monday held a news conference at the school where dozens of supporters, mostly faculty members, voiced support for Kilgore’s rehiring.
Kilgore began working as a lecturer and research scholar at U. of I. in 2010, but his contract was not renewed after it ended in August. He and his supporters have since been fighting for his reinstatement.
The board of trustees does not typically get involved in hiring decisions for part-time or nontenured faculty.
However, Kilgore’s employment became an issue in February after The News-Gazette in Champaign detailed his former involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army, a 1970s-era radical group, including his role in a 1975 armed robbery that left one woman dead.
Kilgore then lived and worked in Africa for many years since at least 1982, according to his resume. He was arrested in South Africa in 2002, extradited to the U.S. and spent five years in prison for second-degree murder and possession of an explosive device for his role in the robbery.
After his criminal past came to light earlier this year, U. of I. officials told Kilgore that his contract would not be renewed. Adesida then appointed a committee to review Kilgore’s employment and the process that led to his hiring, including whether he had undergone a criminal background check.
The committee recommended that Kilgore, a nontenured faculty member, be allowed to continue to work at the university.
“The committee does not support a blanket or permanent exclusion of employment for Mr. Kilgore,” according to the report. It concluded that Kilgore “has been a successful employee and has contributed to the scholarly and educational missions of the campus.”
The committee found that a criminal check was not required for his position and that all hiring policies had been followed. The report said Kilgore “voluntarily disclosed” his criminal history and that all but one hiring administrator was “well aware of his past.”
The committee that reviewed Kilgore’s employment found that he held 13 appointments in eight academic units at U. of I. from 2010 to 2014.
Kilgore, 66, taught classes in global studies, urban planning and in the College of Fine and Applied Arts, and he is known as a respected teacher, writer and activist in the Champaign-Urbana community. At one point, Kilgore helped the university secure a nearly $3 million grant.
According to the FBI, Kilgore was the final member to be arrested from the Symbionese Liberation Army. When he was taken into custody in South Africa 12 years ago, he had been living there for more than a decade under the alias Charles William Pape and working at the University of Cape Town teaching English.
He was charged with possession of an unregistered explosive device, false statements in a passport application and second-degree murder in connection with the death of bank customer Myrna Opsahl during a 1975 armed robbery in Carmichael, Calif. He was sentenced in 2004 to six years in a California federal prison but was released in 2009.
Soon after his release, Kilgore applied for a position at U. of I. when he emailed Merle Bowen, director of the Center for African Studies, according to university documents. His wife, Teresa Barnes, was a member of the center’s advisory committee and is a full-time professor of history and gender/women’s studies at U. of I. According to Barnes’ resume, she and Kilgore lived and worked in Africa at the same time.
Barnes took a job at U. of I. in 2008.
In 2009, Kilgore wrote to Bowen that he had recently moved to Champaign to rejoin his family after living in Africa for nearly two decades. He did not mention that he had been imprisoned. He included a resume that had a gap in employment from 2002, when he was working in South Africa, to the present, when he described himself as a “self-employed writer.”
The next day, Bowen offered him a job as an “affiliate research scholar,” which would not be a paid position but would provide access to university resources such as the libraries.
It was a foot in the door for Kilgore, who parlayed the unpaid position into other appointments as a visiting lecturer and hourly employee at many departments throughout the campus.
In a May speech to the board of trustees, Kilgore urged the board to allow him to continue working at the university.
“Many people with felony convictions want to give back to their communities, and one of the best ways to do this is to teach young people how to avoid a destructive path,” Kilgore said.
While U. of I. trustees largely stayed quiet about Kilgore’s employment, Kennedy described him as a “domestic terrorist” in a media report and indicated that he should not work at the school.
Kennedy’s role in the case is especially noteworthy given his family’s history and his role in an unrelated case concerning a former 1970s radical who was denied emeritus status at the University of Illinois’ Chicago campus.
Kennedy, a Chicago businessman, is the son of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968.
In 2010 the U. of I. board, under Kennedy’s leadership, denied faculty emeritus status to William Ayers, a co-founder of the Weather Underground, a radical group responsible for bombings of government buildings in the early 1970s.
More recently, the U. of I. board voted 8-1 not to hire controversial professor Steven Salaita to a tenured position after he posted many anti-Israel tweets during the summer.
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