African-American researcher says racism is why he wasn’t given tenure.
Adrianne Appel
A biologist at MIT began a hunger strike this morning to protest the decision two years ago to deny him tenure, which he says was due to racial discrimination.
James Sherley, who is African American, plans to forgo food and sit outside the MIT provost’s office every morning until the administration grants him tenure and addresses what he and a group of supporters call long-term, entrenched racism at MIT and other research institutes. He is also demanding the resignation of the provost, Rafael Reif, whom Sherley accuses of mishandling the review of his tenure case. About 30 people joined him in this morning’s protest.
James Sherley
”This isn’t about me getting tenure at MIT, it’s about why I didn’t get tenure at MIT,” Sherley said. ”My situation isn’t unique. How can we have well-trained people and so few tenured?”
Chi-Sang Poon, a research scientist with the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology who was at the protest, said, “This is about a problem that has been plaguing this institute for all of its history. Practically everything James has been through I have been through.”
Sherley and Poon listed inadequate laboratory space, problems getting promoted, and conflicts of interest among faculty making departmental decisions as issues at MIT that are influenced by race.
An ad hoc group of Sherley supporters, including Noam Chomsky and others mainly from MIT’s social science and humanities departments, circulated a statement Monday in support of Sherley.
The MIT administration says it stands by the decision to not grant tenure but isn’t ruling out negotiating with Sherley.
“The lines are open and continue to be open,” said MIT spokesperson Patti Richards earlier today.
In response to Sherley’s case, MIT announced last week that it plans to form a committee to conduct a study of the impact of race on faculty at the institute. A few committees exist at MIT that focus on diversity issues but they have not conducted a study of minority faculty.
Ceasar McDowell, professor of community development at MIT, said that underrepresented minority faculty have for years been calling for a comprehensive review of potential racial disparities. “It needs to happen” but should already have been done, he said.
MIT announced last year that it would hire an associate provost for faculty equity, but that position remains unfilled.
Twenty of 40 faculty members of Sherley’s bioengineering department issued a statement today defending the tenure decision.
“We believe in our hearts that, as in all tenure cases in our department, it was a fair and honest process executed at the utmost level of integrity and ethics. It is our collective view that Prof. Sherley was treated fairly,” they said.
The number of black, Hispanic, and Native American faculty at MIT is small—between 30 and 40, out of a total of about 900. Some black professors said they were too nervous to comment publicly about Sherley’s case, fearing it would harm their careers. One faculty member said that to recount a positive experience at MIT could risk alienation from others in MIT’s black community who haven’t had similar positive experiences.
Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at MIT, has conducted studies of women faculty at MIT over the last decade, which will likely serve as models for the newly announced investigation into minority faculty. Hopkins found great disparities between women and men in terms of hiring, lab space, and other issues. Despite the attention the reports garnered and the admission by senior leaders that sexism is a problem at MIT, change has been extremely slow, she said. There were 22 women faculty in the sciences in 1996 when the first report was released and today there are 36.
Sherley has been at MIT since 1998 and does research on stem cells. To avoid destroying or manipulating human embryos, he works with adult stem cells. This fact, he said, may have been a secondary factor in the decision to deny him tenure.