Last night, the trustees of the City University of New York overturned the decision of Brooklyn College to deny tenure to history professor KC Johnson for "lack of collegiality." Matthew Goldstein, chancellor of the CUNY system, read one of Johnson's books and interviewed him personally in order to arrive at his decision. His statement, as reported in today's Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription only, or see the shorter column in The New York Post) is a remarkable and much-deserved vindication of Johnson: "Although collegiality is a factor that may be considered in connection with promotion and tenure decisions, I did not find compelling and objective evidence of a major problem in that regard sufficient to trump a truly outstanding record of scholarship, teaching, and other aspects of service." Johnson's own comment is worth remarking as well: "I hope this will be a lesson to college administrators to respect academic freedom and make tenure decisions based on scholarship and teaching."

Here's hoping the Brooklyn College vigilantes reconsider the case of philosophy professor Michael Cholbi, which bears a striking resemblance to Johnson's. Here's hoping, too, that this is not the end of Johnson's case: he was persecuted by departmental colleagues who disliked his politics; the campaign to deny him tenure for "lack of collegiality" was engineered by the department chair; and Brooklyn College administrators--most notably Provost Roberta Matthews--backed up the departmental vendetta by refusing to take Johnson's charges of malfeasance seriously. There are some who should be fired at CUNY--but Johnson and Cholbi are not among them.

UPDATE: The New York Times has more.

Unfortunately, it is not only departments and colleges who deny tenure on such ridiculous grounds. A friend of mine (who has gone on to be a reasonably noted researcher of Presidential behavior) was denied tenure by the Provost and President of the University after his department and college (overriding the Dean's denial) had accepted him, basically on (covert political grounds). It stinks of McCarthyism, no matter which ideological group is doing it. Good for the CUNY trustees. Trustees, indeed. They can be proud of their action.

Glad you are on top of this. Sadly, and I mean it, sadly this is going on all over the country. How did liberalism sink to this level???

I am so confused by this I can't express it.

Well, liberals are just so correct that anyone they disagree with must be of no consequence.

The solution must be the reverse of the Roman Consular system: either faculty or admin can grant tenure, but neither can veto it once granted. Of course, there must be a way to revoke tenure that works; look at the mess at Florida Southern.

Two cheers for KC.
It is appropriate for the board of trustees to step in in such egregious cases and they did the right thing.
However, the abdication of responsibility at all levels between the department and the board has led to a series of events that might happen again in a less clear cut situation. What happens if a very popular teacher with a poor research record and a lack of collegiality is denied tenure?

It's good to see Goldstein did not cave. I used to edit the student rag at CUNY/CSI. I was removed via fiat from the admin when I had the nerve to call them to the carpet for hiring a History Prof--with tenure--who was under indictment for pedophiliac prediclictions down in Big Easy, but was cozy with one of the school's deans.
CUNY is still an academic nightmare. Friends of mine who work at personnel companies refer to the joint at "the thirteenth grade."

The academic community has rendered the word "collegiality" meaningless except as a code word for "does not accept received dogma in an acceptable manner." Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were known for racial using code words and phrases in their campaign speeches. Phrases like "silent-majority" and "law and order" were geared to play the race card without resorting to race-laden terms. Collegiality is now used as a tenure-denying word geared to play the received-dogma card without resorting to ideological-laden terms. Can one picture Brooklyn College announcing the denial of tenure on the grounds that the faculty could not abide the differing political views of the applicant? Just cannot be imagined - can it - even though it happens regularly. Th word allows academics to spin their decisions to the public as one in which a professor is fired because he or she is somehow not nice. It also enables them to delude themelves into thinking that their actions are designed to enhance the academic community by weeding out those who are not 'collegial'. Lazy and insecure minds are scared of opinons that differ from their own. Sad, very sad.

If a "higher authority" ie, Boards of Trustees, can in all their wisdom (?) decide to grant tenure to someone denied tenure, then they ought also have the right to deny tenure to someone granted it by his peers, dept, college...which suggests that ultimately what a dept does or fails to do is not to be taken seriously.

I recall a friend, now dead, who taught at a CUNy school and told me about denying tenure for lack of collegiality to a guy who was very fine teacher and scholar. He was from South Africa and made constant anti-black comments to memebers of his dept. The dept felt they simply did not want a lifetimeof this guy in their midst, no matter his other qualifications.

A related matter that should be addressed concerns not who is or is not retained but, rather, who is hired in the first place. At my University (I have recently been emeritized) and at many others the humanities and social science departments have been on a long rampage of leftism. That is to say, most new hires are Marxist, radical feminist, postmodernist or what have you by way of nihilistic deviation from tradition and decency. These young people are being hired, of course, by the "tenured older radicals" who have taken over such disciplines as English, Romance Languages, Sociology and such newly invented ones as Cultural Studies, Gender Studies and, for all we know, Studies Studies.

Even if the "collegiality" assessment were done honestly (rather than being politically-motivated, as seems to be the case here), I question its relevance for most academic positions. Professors do their teaching *as individuals*, rather than in teams, and much of their research is done the same way. Collegiality really means "plays well with others"; this matters more in jobs where playing well with others is the essence of the jobs as opposed to jobs in which playing well with others is secondary to individual performance.

I recently had a verbal run-in with some profs from U of Florida about the war.

Excerpt:

"After a brief summary of his academic background (oh, it was quite a list of paper deeds), he addressed me in a barely disguised German accent: 'I don't see how someone who can't read French and German newspapers can possibly be informed on this matter.'"

And yep, all these guys had tenure.

As a student and a firm supporter of KC Johnson, last week's news was tremendous. Brooklyn College and its students will only reap the benefits of having a wonderful man and teacher in its midst.
This battle was long, arduous and in many ways absolutely ridiculous - it never should have taken place. Much has been made about the "evil liberals" in our nation's campuses that push their own agenda above education. That really wasn't the case here - it could have (and does) happen in any workplace setting - where those with power (i.e. tenured profs and chairs) abuse it and the little guy suffers. The clash of personality, or professional jealousy was more to blame here than anything else. Also faculty pulling ranks based on convenience rather than principle played a large role here.
Kudos to Chancellor Goldstein for having the courage to override beaureaucratic petty politics and appointing a fair unbiased committee to review what is no doubt a stellar academic and scholastic record.
For all of the students at Brooklyn College who have had the privilege of learning with KC, I would like to thank anyone who has taken an interest in heling KC attain tenure.