DePaul University faculty and students rally in support of two female, minority professors who were denied tenure
Chicago Sun-Times
December 8, 2010
More than 30 DePaul University faculty and students rallied Tuesday around two professors, both women of color who were denied tenure in what their supporters claim is part of a troubling pattern at the school.
Namita Goswami, a philosophy professor, and Quinetta Shelby, a chemistry professor, were two minority candidates denied tenure this year. Four other minority professors were also denied, although one’s denial was reversed.
Every white professor up for tenure at the same time received the lifetime job guarantee, said Matthew Abraham, a professor in the Writing, Rhetoric and Discourse Department. This follows tenure controversies in 2007 over Norman Finkelstein, an outspoken critic of Israel, and in 2009, when five of seven professors denied tenure were women and another was a minority man.
Abraham said the group assembled Tuesday in an art gallery blocks from the Lincoln Park campus was asking DePaul’s Board of Trustees — including Mary Dempsey, Chicago Public Library commissioner, and Chicago mayoral candidate Gery Chico — to investigate “what increasing numbers of faculty believe is a broken tenure system and a crisis of leadership at the top.”
