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The University of Illinois at Chicago is at risk of losing $4.5 million if the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign rehires James Kilgore as an adjunct, The Chicago Tribune reported. Kilgore has a strong record as an adjunct but was dropped from teaching last year amid reports about his criminal past with the Symbionese Liberation Army. While Kilgore was open abut that history when he was hired, some questioned his suitability to teach, while many faculty groups said that he should be judged on his performance as an adjunct, not his past. The Illinois board last month cleared the way for Kilgore to be rehired, and the Tribune reported that departments are in fact starting the process to employ him.
But the Tribune reported that Richard Hill, a Chicago businessman who last year pledged $6.5 million to the Illinois-Chicago bioengineering department, has informed the university that if it proceeds with Kilgore's rehiring, he will not give the $4.5 million that remains on his pledge. "I no longer wish to be associated with University of Illinois," he wrote to the university. "The academy at the University of Illinois has clearly lost its moral compass." In an email to the Tribune explaining his views, he said, "I will not contribute neither time nor money to such a morally debased enterprise.... If they stand up and police their own organization to assure they are of the highest standards, I will stand with them till my dying days."
