Former Wheaton Professor Who Wore Hijab Will Join UVa Faculty

Larycia A. Hawkins, the associate professor of political science who was placed on leave by Wheaton College, in Illinois, for expressing solidarity with Muslim students, has a new job, at the University of Virginia.

She will conduct research on the relationship between religions and race at the university’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture as the Abd el-Kader Visiting Faculty Fellow, which is named for the 19th-century Islamic scholar and leader. The position is renewable for up to three years.

A decade ago, Ms. Hawkins was a fellow at UVa’s Miller Center, which the university calls “a nonpartisan institute that seeks to expand understanding of the presidency, policy, and political history.”

Ms. Hawkins and Wheaton, which suspended her in December over her assertion that Muslims and Christians “worship the same God” and her decision to wear a hijab in solidarity with Muslims, reached a “confidential agreement” last month that resulted in her departure from the institution, where she was the first and only black female tenured professor.