The University of Illinois has hired 1970s-era radical James Kilgore to teach a course next semester.

Thomas Bassett is director of Global Studies at the Urbana-Champaign campus. He said Friday that Kilgore's proposal to teach the course "Sweatshops or Flat World Opportunities? Exploring the new World of Work" was approved this week. Kilgore will be paid $3,500.

Kilgore declined comment.

Earlier this year the university told Kilgore it would no longer hire him. That followed news-media stories about part-time university work he'd done since his 2009 prison release.

Kilgore served time for his role in a 1975 bank robbery in California during which a housewife died.

But last month the university's board of trustees cleared the way for him to be hired by saying part-time hires are campus-level decisions.