Fired VSU faculty members demand answers, jobs back

Six faculty members say they were abruptly fired with no explanation last year from Virginia State University. VSU isn’t commenting.

Six fired faculty members in the same department at Virginia State University are calling on the Petersburg college to give them their jobs back after they say they were abruptly let go in violation of the school’s own policies. 

Dr. Vitalis Temu, Dr. Harbans Bhardwaj, Dr. Adnan Yousuf, Dr. Maru Kering, Dr. Toktam Taghavi, and Dr. Molla Mengist all taught and conducted research at VSU’s Agricultural Research Station. But they unexpectedly lost their jobs on December 16 in individual meetings they thought were being held to discuss their work at VSU. 

“It was so shocking,” said Temu, who worked at VSU for over 14 years. 

On Wednesday, the “Fired Six” plan to speak at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond and meet with state lawmakers to raise awareness about their fight to get their jobs back, said Kelly Benjamin, a spokesperson for their union, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). 

Lawmakers in Virginia are currently weighing whether to give collective bargaining rights to higher education workers. Benjamin said that what happened to these six VSU faculty members strengthens the case for giving campus workers and professors a seat at the negotiating table. 

“If they had a strong contract, all of this could have been avoided,” Benjamin said in an interview. 

VSU did not respond to a request for comment. 

According to the AAUP, the six professors were given no written explanation for their terminations, no advance notice, and no opportunity to make the case to defend themselves. At the meetings, the professors were told to sign a severance agreement on the spot or risk losing out on their severance. But all six refused and were then escorted off campus by university police and issued trespass warnings. 

Temu thinks he and his colleagues are being targeted for questioning the way the department was being run.

“This is vindictive,” he said in an interview.

Tim Gibson, the president of the Virginia AAUP, called VSU’s firing of six professors with no explanation a grave threat to academic freedom. University professors and students are supposed to feel they can follow the truth where it leads them without fear of retaliation, Gibson said in an interview. 

“If you fear for your job, you may self-censor,” Gibson said. 

Gibson said the goal now is to pressure VSU into giving these faculty members their jobs back. 

“We need to call our legislators, call our senators, call the governor’s office,” Gibson said. “Demand an explanation and demand the immediate reinstatement of these six beloved professors.”