When Dr. James L. Sherley began a hunger strike outside the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provost’s office in February 2007 alleging racism in his tenure denial, the then-associate professor of biological engineering re-ignited, in a very public way, concerns about the institution’s commitment to diversity.

The lack of diversity has been a recurring problem at MIT. At the time of Sherley’s protest, just 27 of MIT’s 740 tenured faculty members were American Indian, Black and Hispanic. Today, there are 34 underrepresented minorities out of 767 tenured faculty members.

Sherley never won tenure, and a Black faculty member and a Black former trustee broke their ties to MIT as well in protest over the manner in which the school handled the Sherley incident as well as its seeming lack of commitment to diversity. Two years later, the administration is taking steps to ensure the school is welcoming to faculty members of color — an effort some say is moving too slowly.

‘Something Widespread’

Many of Sherley’s supporters say they were not in a position to know if he should have been granted tenure based on his scientific credentials. However, former MIT professor Frank Douglas and former trustee Bernard Loyd, who both left the university as a result of how Sherley was treated, say the case was symptomatic of an unwillingness to grapple with diversity issues, a problem they had witnessed during their relationships with the school.

“I was not insisting that James should get tenure because I was not present at the university when [the tenure denial] happened,” says Douglas. “I didn’t know the case. My issue was, ‘Is there an environment which led him to believe that he was treated unfairly?’ And, in fact, I think there were things that gave him reason to believe he was treated unfairly.”

In a letter circulated at the beginning of Sherley’s hunger strike, 11 MIT faculty members (Douglas was not one of them) outlined what they said were a number of problems with the case. Supporters pointed out what they said were problems with the mentoring and lab space that Sherley received, felt that the school had failed to adequately acknowledge Sherley’s achievements, and asserted that Sherley’s racial discrimination complaint was mishandled.