Phyllis M. Wise, chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said on Thursday that she would resign her post next week following a controversial year at the state’s flagship institution.
The timing of the move surprised some senior administrators and faculty members, even though it followed a tumultuous period in which the university has faced widespread criticism over the chancellor’s decision to effectively rescind a job offer to a controversial scholar. The university also has recently come under fire for its treatment of athletes.
Hours before Ms. Wise announced she was stepping down, a federal judge ruled that the university could not deny its contractual obligations to the scholar, Steven G. Salaita, whose written offer Ms. Wise refused to submit to the Board of Trustees last summer after he posted a series of inflammatory comments about Israel on Twitter. A university spokesman said on Thursday that the court ruling had no bearing on the chancellor’s decision to leave. ...