Historian's spouse barred from teaching after newspaper runs a story about his past ... as a Symbionese Liberation Army bank robber

“I hope that you’ve googled me.”

That’s what James Kilgore, adjunct instructor of global studies and urban planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told his programme head when he applied for a teaching job there in 2011. Two years out of prison for his involvement with a 1975 bank robbery in which a woman was killed, Dr Kilgore wasn’t legally obligated to disclose his criminal history. (Dr Kilgore was not the gunman.)

But he wanted to save the university from being blindsided by a possible media firestorm over hiring someone with a criminal record – especially one formerly associated with the notorious Symbionese Liberation Army. The underground group is perhaps best-known for kidnapping the heiress Patty Hearst.

“My belief is, because of the nature of my case, it was the respectful thing to do to put all that out there,” Dr Kilgore said in an interview with Inside Higher Ed.

University officials had googled Dr Kilgore, who by then had served time in prison, earned a PhD and authored several novels, articles and a textbook. They hired him anyway.

And the firestorm never came - until February of this year, when a local newspaper, The News-Gazette, published a series of detailed articles about Dr Kilgore’s past, including that he’d been a fugitive for more than 25 years after the robbery. He was finally caught in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2002, where he was living under the name John Pape, had a family, and was teaching at a university. He served six years in prison back in the US for second-degree murder, possession of an explosive device and passport fraud.

After his sentence, he returned to his wife, Teresa Barnes, who by then had become an associate professor of history at Urbana-Champaign. Dr Kilgore was active in local politics and community life, including his vocal opposition to a proposed $20 million (£11.85 million) county jail....