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A statement from the BE faculty — Feb. 5, 2007

A statement from the BE faculty — Feb. 5, 2007

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Undoubtedly it has come to your attention that Prof. James L. Sherley is protesting his tenure decision. Out of respect and concern for our colleague Prof. Sherley, until now, no public statements have been made by his colleagues in the Biological Engineering Division.

We state with certainty and a clear conscience that race did not play any role in the decision that resulted in Prof. Sherley’s tenure case not being taken forward. As in all tenure and promotion decisions, there was a thorough consideration of Prof. Sherley’s accomplishments in research and teaching, of the many letters of evaluation received from experts in Prof. Sherley’s research areas, and of his service to MIT and to broader science and engineering communities. We believe in our hearts that, as in all tenure cases in our department, it was a fair and honest process executed at the utmost level of integrity and ethics. It is our collective view that Prof. Sherley was treated fairly.

Sincerely,

Angela Belcher, Peter Dedon, Ed Delong, Forbes Dewey, John Essigmann, Jim Fox, Alan Grodzinsky, Roger Kamm, Alex Klibanov, Harvey Lodish, Paul Matsudaira, Leona Samson, Ram Sasisekharan, David Schauer, Peter So, Steve Tannenbaum, Bruce Tidor, Dane Wittrup, Yanni Yannas, Michael Yaffe