Nature this week has a news article and an editorial about the James Sherley case at MIT and more broadly about faculty diversity. Sherley is the bioengineering professor who went on a hunger strike in February protesting the decision to deny him tenure, saying that it was due to racism (he’s African-American). MIT wants Sherley to leave on June 30, saying that it has exhausted all appeals and reviews of his case. Sherley says he won’t leave. One MIT professor, Frank Douglas, resigned in protest last week.

The editorial makes a good point that while there have been efforts to bring more diversity into the ranks of PhD students, more work is needed to make sure that minorities are recruited and retained at the faculty level. Without commenting specifically on the Sherley case, it says that racial discrimination can be very subtle and faculty must learn to recognize it. The first step is for universities do a campus-wide review of racial disparities, something MIT says it’s now doing.