Anne Hull, Dana Priest, Michel du Cille

Michel du Cille is a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for The Washington Post. He was uninvited from a journalism conference at Syracuse University because school officials fear he might spread Ebola, after covering the disease in Liberia 21 days ago.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist said he's disappointed at being uninvited to a Syracuse University journalism conference because of Ebola fears.

Michel du Cille, of The Washington Post, was disinvited from the event because school administrators fear he could transmit Ebola to people after covering the crisis in Liberia.

He has been back in the United States for 21 days and is symptom free, according to New Photographer magazine.

"I just got off the phone with the Dean [Lorraine Branham], and I am pissed off," du Cille told the magazine this afternoon. "I am disappointed in the level of journalism at Syracuse, and I am angry that they missed a great teaching opportunity. Instead they have decided to jump in with the mass hysteria."

He said he spoke to Dr. John Brooks at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta who told him that the possibility of spreading the disease after a 21-day incubation period is very unlikely, according to News Photographer magazine.

"I certainly understand his frustration," said Eric Spina, Syracuse University vice chancellor and provost.

He said he met with Branham, dean of the Newhouse School of Public Communications, to discuss having du Cille visit the campus during their annual Fall Workshop, which started Thursday and lasts through Sunday.

Spina said they conferred with the head of the university's health center and Dr. Quoc Nguyen, Onondaga County Health Department's medical director, and they supported the decision to cancel du Cille's visit.

He said the possibility of creating a panic among students and faculty, combined with the fact that du Cille's 21-day incubation period ended Thursday led to the decision.

"Our primary responsibility is to the safety of those individuals," Spina said.

Nikki Kahn,a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post photojournalist and du Cille's wife, was also slated to attend the conference, but will no longer make an appearance.

Spina said conversations today did not include uninviting Kahn, and he wasn't aware she would not be attending until he learned from a syracuse.com reporter.

He said he hopes du Cille will come back to the university at a later date to visit with students and possibly engage in a dialogue or debate about why the university's decision to ask him not to come to the conference was unsound.

du Cille has been following the CDC's guidelines for monitoring himself for Ebola symptoms since he returned from Africa, taking his temperature at least twice a day, according to the News Photographer magazine.

"They missed a great teaching opportunity here for the students, to show them how to report the facts and practice good journalism," du Cille told the magazine. "Instead they went the alarmist route."