Today's Daily Pennsylvanian is running an op-ed from assistant professor of psychology Francisco Gil-White alleging that his tenure review has been corrupted by colleagues who wish to see him fired for political reasons. In addition to his academic work, Gil-White edits and contributes to the web site "Emperor's New Clothes," which is dedicated to investigative reporting on alleged U.S. war crimes in Yugoslavia. According to Gil-White, his involvement with the site so disturbed the senior colleague who was assigned to "mentor" him through his assistant professorship that it led to an email "advising" him that he should give the work up if he wanted to keep his job. The email also suggests that Gil-White inappropriately commandeers class time to hector students with his politics--a claim Gil-White refutes on his site.

Gil-White's department recently voted to give him tenure--but the vote was mixed, and the handwriting is now on the wall. Mixed departmental votes almost always spell a negative tenure decision at Penn (and elsewhere). Gil-White has as good as received his walking papers. His publication, service, and teaching records are strong, however, and he remains convinced that political bias has brought about the impending end of his Penn career. Gil-White has documented his case on his faculty home page, reprinting the correspondence with departmental colleagues that he believes is relevant to his case. Read it and see what you think.

At the very least, what we are looking at with Gil-White's case is a prime example how hopelessly flawed the tenure process is. Notoriously non-transparent and eminently abusable, the tenure process can readily be used by people with grudges or agendas to damage the careers of those they dislike. For this reason, even when the process proceeds "fairly" (I put the word in quotes because I don't believe that a process that allows careers to be destroyed anonymously and without accountability can ever be called fair), it is always open to the sorts of accusations Gil-White makes here. This is not to discredit Gil-White, but rather to note the difficulties someone in his position faces. When your career hangs in the balance of a secret, ultimately subjective review process, you are always essentially conjecturing--and essentially stating the obvious--when you claim the process has been corrupted.

Penn tends to be a pretty quiet campus when it comes to the sorts of scandals I regularly write about on Critical Mass. But Gil-White is going public in a way that promises to draw some awfully unpleasant media scrutiny. One can't really blame him--that's the only way he stands a chance of exposing what he believes is happening to him. But one notes, too, that the publicity is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If his colleagues did not hate him before, they will certainly hate him now. And if they had mixed feelings about retaining him before, now they will become passionate about wanting to be rid of him.

I'll post more as more becomes available.

UPDATE: KC Johnson, who knows whereof he speaks when it comes to persecutorial tenure reviews, has more.

UPDATE, 2/6/04: Arutz Sheva has picked up the story, suggesting that Gil-White's problems began when he stopped voicing pro-Arab opinions and began supporting Israel. Thanks to reader Fred R. for the link.