Marc Lamont Hill keeps Temple University professor job after CNN firing

Marc Lamont Hill lost his CNN gig Thursday over his speech attacking Israel, but it appears that his job as a Temple University professor is safe.

Temple University issued a statement defending the free-speech rights of Mr. Hill, a professor of media studies and urban education at the Philadelphia college.

“Marc Lamont Hill has been quoted extensively over the last 24 hours,” said Temple in an email to the Washington Times.

“Marc Lamont Hill does not represent Temple University and his views are his own,” said the statement. “However, we acknowledge that he has a constitutionally protected right to express his opinion as a private citizen.”

Mr. Hill was dropped by CNN after he ignited an uproar with his United Nations speech Wednesday defending Palestinian use of force against Israel and repeating a terrorist mantra calling for Israel’s elimination.

“[J]ustice requires … a free Palestine from the river to the sea,” he told a UN panel, a slogan associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas.

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“This slogan is not a dog whistle, it is as blatant as a swastika daubed in red paint,” said Dani Dayan, Israeli counsel general in New York City, on Twitter.

Mr. Hill denied supporting the destruction of Israel, tweeting, “I do not support anti-Semitism, killing Jewish people, or any of the other things attributed to my speech.”

Mr. Hill, who was dropped by Fox News in 2010, also works as a host for BET News.

The Republican Jewish Coalition launched Thursday a phone campaign to have Mr. Hill fired from Temple, saying that his “call for creating a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” would mean the “complete annihilation of Israel.”