Tracking Bias or Guilt by Association?

by E Wayne Ross on December 26, 2007

Inside Higher Ed: Tracking Bias or Guilt by Association?

If a professor is a member of a church that holds anti-gay views, and isn’t forthright about those views, does that make the professor’s vote against the tenure bid of a gay professor suspect?

That is one of the questions explored in an unusual lawsuit against the University of Michigan — filed nearly three years ago but thus far bogged down in preliminary motions. State courts have twice rejected requests by Michigan to have the case dismissed and a third request was scheduled to be heard this week, but postponed. The professor, Peter Hammer, won a majority of votes of the faculty of the law school in his case. But the 18-12 margin was two shy of the two-thirds requirement to win tenure, so he lost his job, and now is a professor of law at Wayne State University. He says he was the first male faculty member rejected by the faculty for tenure in 40 years.