KNOXVILLE, Tennessee, United States (AP) – The University of Tennessee at Knoxville has offered to reinstate a professor who was acquitted of federal charges accusing him of hiding his relationship with a Chinese university while he was benefiting from ‘a research grant from NASA. , according to a letter obtained by the Knoxville News Sentinel.
The newspaper reported that in the letter dated October 14, Chancellor and Senior Vice Chancellor John Zomchick offered Anming Hu a permanent job as an engineering professor, as well as a certain amount of back pay and an immigration lawyer.
Hu was also offered $ 200,000 over three years to restore his research program, and an explanation of the university’s support for his work visa as a naturalized Canadian citizen, according to the newspaper.
Hu was arrested in February 2020 for wire fraud and misrepresentation. The judge called off the trial in June due to a lack of agreement among the jury. Prosecutors had legally announced that they intended to open a new trial, but the judge acquitted Hu last month.
The arrest was part of a larger campaign launched by the Justice Department, under the administration of then President Donald Trump, against university researchers who allegedly concealed their links to Chinese institutions.
Hu started working at the University of Tennessee (UT) in Knoxville in 2013 and was later recommended by another professor to apply for a NASA research grant. This request failed but the next two failed. A 2012 law prohibits NASA from collaborating with China or Chinese companies.
The government interpreted this ban to include Chinese universities, and Hu was a faculty member at Beijing University of Technology in addition to his position at UT.
Prosecutors tried to show that Hu deliberately hid his post at the Chinese university when he applied for a NASA-funded research grant.
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