IU computer science faculty condemned professor Xiaofeng Wang’s termination and asked Provost Rahul Shrivastav to revoke the move in a letter sent to him Wednesday.
The university terminated Wang on March 28, the same day the FBI searched homes belonging to him and IU Libraries analyst Nianli Ma in Carmel and Bloomington. Neither the FBI nor IU have commented on the reason for the searches.
The letter echoed another open letter published Monday from the American Association of University Professors’ IU Bloomington chapter, alleging the university violated its termination policy by not following due process. It asked Shrivastav to provide Wang the notice and hearing required by policy.
It also grants new insight on the job Wang had accepted in Singapore, according to his termination letter. Wednesday’s letter said Wang had properly notified Department Chair Yuzhen Ye that he would leave for a new position earlier in March.
The letter said that transition was halted after the university put him on “administrative leave.”
“Terminating Professor Wang’s appointment and suddenly removing his profiles from the IU website without any explanation has eroded faculty trust in IU’s administrative procedures and damaged the university’s reputation, especially as this news has already gained global attention,” the letter read.
Several IU Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering faculty members told the Indiana Daily Student on Tuesday that the lack of communication is making them fearful — especially among Chinese and Chinese American researchers.
The Indiana Daily Student granted faculty anonymity due to fear of retribution from the university.
“Many of us are confused, saddened and frightened by the IU administration’s actions,” the letter read.
Computer science professor Amr Sabry, who chose to go on the record, said Tuesday that he wasn’t surprised about the termination.
“Anybody can be next,” he said.
The fear comes amid memories of the China Initiative, a program launched under the first Trump administration in 2018 designed to combat economic espionage — foreign-sponsored attempts to unlawfully obtain sensitive information or critical technologies and provide it to foreign countries.
In the four years between the program’s launch and its termination in 2022, at least a dozen scholars of Chinese descent were prosecuted, though none were officially charged with economic espionage and many were dismissed.
One chemical engineering professor, Feng Tao, was tenured at the University of Kansas when he was accused of obscuring ties to a Chinese university while doing federally funded research. Last July, a federal appeals court overturned Tao’s conviction for making a false statement, and he’s since sued the University of Kansas for not reinstating him.
While the China Initiative hasn’t been officially relaunched, the law firm Nixon Peabody has observed an increase in federal scrutiny of ties to China and has received a “startling” amount of engagement from professors and universities who’ve been contacted by law enforcement.
One Luddy professor said faculty are all in shock. He described Wang as a “superstar from a research perspective.”
According to csrankings.org, a website which ranks computer science institutions by publications, Wang had 92 computer security publications from 2003 through 2024. IU ranks eighth in the U.S. for computer security institutions during that time period. The faculty member with the next highest number of publications has 30.
With Wang’s termination, the Luddy professor said IU will drop far down the list.
An IU informatics graduate who took a 400-level cyber security class with Wang said he was a laid-back professor who cared about learning above all else, even when assigning projects that would make up the majority of the semester’s grade. In one project, Wang didn’t care if the result was cool or an innovative design — he just cared if students learned about it, the alum said in a Reddit message to the IDS.
“Wang has made significant contributions to Indiana University and the scientific community,” Wednesday’s letter read. “Treating a faculty colleague in this manner is undermining the university’s ability to attract and retain high-caliber faculty members.”
