Former UT professor urges university to speed up rehiring
Hu was acquitted in fraud case
Anming Hu, the nanotechnology expert who was acquitted this summer after being charged with defrauding NASA, wants help expediting the University of Tennessee at Knoxville's offer to reinstate him.
In a letter dated Oct. 18 obtained by Knox News, Hu said he was “deeply” appreciative of the offer but made additional requests to Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor John Zomchick.
Hu hasn't been able to work for the university for more than a year. He was suspended without pay in February 2020 and then fired in October of that year because he lost his work authorization. The legal battle against him, which ultimately failed, ended in September of this year.
Here's what Hu asked of UT: h Calling on Tennessee's senators and congressmen to help speed up the process of his employment authorization immigration application.
h Refiling his visa approval without the request to return to Canada temporarily. Hu says leaving the U.S. would jeopardize his permanent residency application.
h Providing him with the same research facilities and office space that he spent six years building at the university.
At the end of the letter, Hu offered to meet with Zomchick to discuss further details.
On Oct. 14, the university offered Hu his tenured job back with lost pay, plus up to $5,000 for a new immigration lawyer and a $200,000 research support package.
In an exclusive interview with Knox News on Oct. 18, Zomchick stated he is hopeful Hu can return to the university in full capacity. “We want Dr. Hu to come back,” Zomchick said. “We're providing him with resources in order to ease his transition back to a fully functioning member of our faculty, and we as an institution will look at our policies. I, as the provost, will work with the faculty to listen to whatever concerns have arisen because of this very complicated and unfortunate event.”
Hu was an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UT. He was suspended without pay and eventually fired after the federal government accused him of attempting to defraud NASA. Hu was put on trial for fraud and false statements in June of this year, but the jury deadlocked and the court declared a mistrial. Prosecutors for the U.S. government were preparing to ask for a retrial, but a federal judge acquitted him of all charges in September.
Hu was brought to trial after the Justice Department created the China Initiative, a program started under former President Donald Trump in 2018 to seek out economic espionage committed by China. The initiative has targeted multiple professors at universities across the nation. University leaders are grappling with how to respond to the allegations made by the Justice Department.
“I know that university presidents and provosts want to collaborate globally. We want researchers that are collaborating with each other in all sorts of different research topics. That's what makes us a stronger university,” Chancellor Donde Plowman said. “We want to find a way to do that, and do it with credibility and honesty and with confidence that we're all delivering what we commit to when we accept the federal grant. We're furthering knowledge and doing what we do as universities.”
“We've made the advances that we have made because of our international collaboration,” Zomchick added. “As a Research One institution, as the state's flagship, we need to continue to provide opportunities for our faculty to have international collaboration.”
Hu, a naturalized Canadian citizen, began working for UT in 2013.