<p>I think they should make him protest in front of the dining hall. Test his resolve, eh?</p>
<p>Depends which dining hall. ;)</p>
<p>The title of this tread may be misleading.</p>
<p>The hunger strike “will seem rash to those who don’t know me well, but it is not,” Sherley wrote in an e-mail. “I hope that people will realize that my [letter] said ‘Help me end racism at MIT,’ and not ‘Help me get tenure at MIT.’ My motivation for this protest is not the fact that I have been denied an opportunity for tenure. It is because of the reason that I have been denied this opportunity ….What I do now is not a rash reaction to disappointment, it is a well-reasoned self-sacrifice for change.”</p>
<p>I was a little confused about what exactly his point was. He first claims that he was denied tenure because he refused to use embryonic stem cells, then says it was because he was black. I don't see anything aout the story that hints race was an issue at all, but I wonder if he has any evidence.</p>
<p>At 5'8'' and 254 pounds I suspect he has ulterior motives.</p>
<p>Of the 740 MIT faculty members who have tenure, 27 or about 4% are ethnic minorities. That's either bad retention or turning away a lot of qualified minority professors including Asians, Hispanics, African Americans, etc. Just compare those minority stats with Harvard, Stanford. I do feel that this man did have racist attitudes and comments directed toward him possibly from former provost Robert Brown and BE chair Douglas Lauffenburger. I do not know how much he has suffered to actually go through with this hunger strike, but he is making a qualified protest and review of MIT's academia selection policies.</p>
<p>I've read some of the professor's comments, and somewhere he claims that he was explicitly denied research space (or funds?) because he was black. I find that a bit hard to believe (call me naive, but I honestly don't see some high ranking university official doing something as politically stupid as saying "no because you're black." It certainly may have been race-motivated, but welll...I wasn't there anyway, so what do I know?</p>
<p>The thing that I think bugs a lot of people is that the claims he makes about his tenure review are related to the wife of the department head not liking him. Which sucks and all, but...racism?</p>
<p>The Tech today had pretty extensive coverage of the issue with excerpts from a bunch of different emails that have been sent around campus about it- from the professor himself, the other faculty in his department, etc etc: (warning: PDF ahead) <a href="http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/PDF/N1.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/PDF/N1.pdf</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
I've read some of the professor's comments, and somewhere he claims that he was explicitly denied research space (or funds?) because he was black. I find that a bit hard to believe
[/quote]
He wasn't been told that he was hired into a special minority-faculty slot with certain restrictions on laboratory space.</p>
<p>My only comment is that I have heard him speak, and was not particularly impressed either by his research program or by his justification for the program. He spoke to a class of undergrads, and was caught off-guard several times by questions.</p>
<p>If that's the way he speaks and presents around other faculty members, I can't say I'm surprised he was denied tenure.</p>
<p>I was going to go on a hunger strike, but to protest world hunger and not some nonsense like tenure. If hes a professor at MIT I doubt he has much to complain about in his life, so I really think he could do more good fighting for the rights of others instead.</p>
<p>I personally think this is just another case of someone trying to pull the race card when it has nothing to do with the situation. The problem with all of these bullcrap "racism" cases is that they desensitize people and take away from real cases where racism needs to be dealt with. It makes is harder to focus on situations that represent actual problems.</p>
<p>(This is based on the assumption that he is full of crap. I haven't heard any evidence of race being an issue, only speculation. Having a lower percentage of minority faculty members does not immediately point to racism. You can't just automatically assume that this is caused by lack of tolerance for diversity.)</p>
<p>Putting on my naive juvenile hat: :cool:</p>
<p>After all the provost or whoever could look at the incident and go:</p>
<p>Okay chubby guy wants to go on a diet and he is protesting something....
...great! looks like he finally got our message that we need a sound mind
in a sound body; </p>
<p>Or maybe the prof guy could come up with rate of decrease of stored fat in the body as a function of reduced calorific intake ... publishes new
insights and gets another million bucks of Federal grants and gets
tenured....
..... a number of pleasant possiblities</p>
<p>Reverting to my open minded balanced self: :)
I wonder why publicizing this incident was required in order to get a
fair treatment? It seems like a private process is missing or broken for
addressing his complaints. </p>
<p>Ends <em>never ever</em> should justify means regardless of who is right or
am I being naive again ...? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I sincerely hope, at least learning institutions do not put up with
bullying based on race and religon by individuals where the threat
of public negative spin is used to achieve an individual's purpose. </p>
<p>Looks like in this case he seemed to believe he did not have any
other recourse - which in itself seems to signal a discontinuity
related to his momentary creative potential ...?</p>
<p>Of course a low percentage of minority faculty doesn't point directly to racism, but this lack of diversity at MIT (4%) is something that needs to be reviewed. Just look at MIT's crosstown, Harvard, which has strived to add more minorities and women faculty members. </p>
<p>At Harvard:
"The proportion of tenured and tenure-track minority members also varies widely. In the School of Business, 22 percent of such faculty are members of minorities, in natural sciences 16 percent, as are 11 percent of tenured or tenure-track law school professors and 10 percent of such humanities faculty. "-The New York Times (June 2006)</p>
<p>All of Harvard's schools more than double MIT's paltry 4%, which is especially low for an outstanding science and technology school.</p>
<p>I know nothing about this particular case, nor anything about MIT's record on black faculty, but MIT was found to have significant problems with its treatment of women scientists. The women had poorer lab space, equipment and fewer research assistants. These resource differences were not related to the length of service of faculty -- for example, untenured male faculty had better resources than untenured women. After a major study on this was released, MIT has taken important steps to improve the situation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>er... :D ... Is your point that despite Harvard's ex-president's perceived sexist
remarks, Harvard has these stats... or are you actually pointing to
Harvard as an example? ...to someone this could actually be a counter
example of why the stats do not tell the story</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Now, that is ... disturbing; I hope having a woman president would change things around ...
I am an optimist and believe great institutions like MIT
gravitate quickly towards a steady state doing the right things driven by their transparency
and access to creativity; </p>
<p>Negative feedback does after all have a reasonable potential to provide
positive amplification?</p>
<p>Or Larry's Summer's initiative to improve Harvard.</p>
<p>On resource differences: I don't have any information about MIT specifically, but I can tell you that in the natural sciences, resources--and especially the number of research assistants--are very much dependent on outside research funds. If a faculty researcher brings in grant money, she/he may use it to buy equipment, fund travel to meetings, hire research assistants in the form of graduate students or postdocs, etc. Inequity of resources among faculty is due not to differential treatment by the university, but by unequal success at winning grants and contracts.</p>
<p>If MIT is "taking steps" to address the situation, then I suspect MIT is offering support to some faculty that it does not offer to all.</p>