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Offer to Come Back

The University of Tennessee is offering Anming Hu, a professor who was acquitted of charges that he hid his ties to China, his position back, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports.

Hu had been charged with fraud and making false statements, as prosecutors alleged that he failed to disclose his work in China while receiving NASA funding. As the Associated Press notes, Hu was caught up by a US scheme to root out ties between federally funded researchers and foreign organizations — an effort that has been criticized as racist as it has focused largely on Chinese and Chinese-American researchers. Hu was acquitted last month, with the judge saying that "no rational jury" could conclude that Hu meant to defraud NASA by not listing his affiliation with the Beijing University of Technology.

According to the News Sentinel, the University of Tennessee has offered to re-instate Hu, something it previously reported that Hu wanted. The AP adds that the university additionally offered Hu some back pay, an immigration attorney, and $200,000 to re-start his research program.

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