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RIGHTS-US: Professor Who Charged Racism Gets the Axe

Adrianne Appel

BOSTON, May 4 2007 (IPS) - A premier U.S. research institute agreed earlier this year to address possible racial bias in hiring, but now it is firing the person who raised the complaints.

The president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has decided to deny tenure to James Sherley, a biologist, and ordered him to vacate his laboratory by Jun. 30. Sherley is one of about 30 black professors of 970 faculty members at MIT.

“I don t know what’s going to happen, but I don’t plan on moving,” Sherley told IPS. He said he will soon begin what would be his second hunger strike, to protest his treatment by the MIT administration.

“I don’t think anyone can look at this case and say injustice has not occurred. I won’t give up on it,” Sherley said. “What I’m doing is trying to find a moral conscience here at MIT.”

Sherley, a stem cell scientist, went on a 12-day hunger strike in February to protest his department’s refusal to consider him for tenure, which he says was due to racial bias. Sherley, who was the only African American in his department, says a tainted grievance process then ruled against him.

Sherley’s case riveted the MIT community, with nationally known colleagues like Noam Chomsky calling for an investigation of the institute’s grievance process and handling of racial bias complaints. Meanwhile, Sherley’s own department colleagues publicly urged MIT to not reconsider the tenure decision.

Sherley has received support from some black colleagues, like James H. Williams, a professor of mechanical engineering, who himself went on a hunger fast in 1991 to focus attention on the education of minority students at MIT.

Others have decided that remaining silent is the safest thing to do, one young professor told IPS privately.

“The MIT administration asked people not to speak to the press,” she said. “It can hurt my career at MIT and elsewhere. Most of us have advised each other not to speak to the press.”

Sherley says he ended his hunger strike in February when MIT President Susan Hockfield agreed to negotiate with him about tenure, and to find a solution to the very low number of black faculty at the institute.

Internal memos obtained by IPS make clear that negotiations have now broken down.

“The tenure and grievance processes are over with respect to Professor Sherley’s candidacy for tenure,” MIT Provost Rafael Reif said in an Apr. 11 letter to Kenneth Manning, an MIT professor who is negotiating on Sherley’s behalf.

“There has been no progress toward a professional mediation of those differences,” MIT President Susan Hockfield wrote in a May 3 letter to Sherley. She urged Sherley to prepare for his transition out of MIT.

Sherley says the MIT administration did not act in good faith during the closed-door negotiations.

“When we look at the whole process, the president and provost simply wanted to get the public light off this issue, and for all the reporters to go away,” Sherley said.

An MIT spokeswoman told IPS Thursday that the institute had no comment about Sherley’s case.

During the negotiations, the MIT president, provost or dean could have offered Sherley tenure and found another MIT science department to welcome his laboratory, Jonathan King, a professor of molecular biology at MIT, told IPS. MIT presidents have offered tenure in this way in the past, King said.

“The dean or provost recognises that the university needs this person and that the department is not able to adequately assess the candidate’s contribution,” King said. “In Sherley’s case, the president apparently decided not to make a tenure offer. This is a mistake.”

“At MIT, we have a need to diversify the faculty for the students. They may never see a faculty of colour,” King said.

“I don’t fault James’ colleagues. I fault the provost and the administration,” he added.

MIT announced Apr. 2, while it was winding down its negotiations with Sherley, that it has chosen faculty members to sit on a committee to review possible racial discrimination in hiring at MIT.

“We have desperately needed a committee like this for years. They have a lot of catching up to do,” King said.

But recruitment isn’t the only answer. MIT also needs to hold onto the professors it has, like Sherley, King said.

The bias at MIT against hiring professors of colour is not intentional but it is entrenched and needs to change, King said. “The issue is structural. It is larger than the treatment of one individual,” he said.

“His colleagues would say, ‘I’m a good guy, I don t mean him harm.’ That was true in the plantation South too. And it was true when we had no female faculty at MIT. Male MIT faculty who denied women tenure would swear on a stack of bibles that they didn’t discriminate against women,” King said.

“It seems to me that MIT is probably operating with some fear of an anti-affirmative backlash if they changed the tenure decision,” Rinku Sen, director of the Applied Research Centre, a think tank that promotes racial equality, told IPS.

Some of Sherley’s colleagues are trying to ensure that the issues he raised do not fade away.

MIT Professor Michel DeGraff, an associate professor of linguistics, argued in an Apr. 27 magazine for MIT faculty that due process was not followed in Sherley’s tenure case.

“Once due process is breached, all bets are off, as far as ensuring fairness in hiring decisions,” he said.

DeGraff cited a gross conflict of interest among those who reviewed Sherley’s bid for tenure, led by the chairman of his department and including the chairman s spouse, who also is a professor in the department.

When Sherley filed a formal grievance about the conflict, his concerns were not seriously considered, DeGraff said. Then, the MIT administration chose to ignore the evidence that Sherley’s tenure process was marred by bias and conflict of interest, he argued.

“At the very least, it seems to me that our upper administration, like the [George W.] Bush administration, could start moving away from denial and finally accept that ‘mistakes were made’ in the case at hand,” DeGraff told his colleagues.