Update on Black MIT Professor's Tenure Battle

Frank L. Jordan resigned to support James Sherley's protest against MIT's tenure denial.

Mad Professah and many others have previously blogged about the decision by James Sherley, an African American Professor of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to protest his denial of tenure by beginning a hunger strike in February 2007. Apparently Professor Sherley ended his hunger strike after 12 days despite the fact that MIT did not agree to either of his demands to re-consider the tenure decision and fire Provost L. Rafael Reif.




However, today comes word that a prominent African American researcher in the same field, Frank L. Douglas, executive director of the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation issued his resignation on June 1, primarily to protest the way in which MIT has (not) dealt with the Sherely tenure case. In an e-mail message to Provost Reif, Jordan accused the u niversity of going back on agreement to arbitrate the tenure dispute with Sherley. MIT issued a statement denying the allegations. The Boston Globe printed an article on the story last week:

[...]

Fewer than half of junior faculty members at MIT are granted tenure, and a special committee created to examine Sherley's tenure review found no evidence of racial discrimination.

[...]

"This is a courageous act by someone who has a lot of character and concern for African-American faculty," [Sherley] said. "And it raises the broader issue of why this administration treats African-American faculty members differently than others."

[...]

Before joining MIT, Douglas was an executive vice president and chief scientific officer at Aventis SA, a leading pharmaceutical firm, where he oversaw global pharmaceutical research, according to his biography on the MIT Sloan School of Management's web site.

"I leave because I would neither be able to advise young Blacks about their prospects of flourishing in the current environment, nor about avenues available to affect change when agreements or promises are transgressed," the e-mail read.

Chi-Sang Poon , a research scientist and outspoken supporter of Sherley, said the resignation reflected deep discontent among faculty members who are racial minorities, who make up a small percentage of MIT's tenured faculty.

"Minority faculty have been passed over for tenure for years," he said, adding that he had been passed over for promotion several times. "The administration has to come to the reckoning that this has been a long standing issue."