Scientist: Racism hurt him at MIT

A stem cell research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said yesterday that he is being denied the opportunity to get tenure because of racism.

Dr. James L. Sherley, one of 28 black professors at MIT, said the decision not to put him forward for tenure is only the latest example of racism he has experienced at MIT. He said he has been denied sufficient lab space, paid less than his peers, and repeatedly slighted by colleagues.

Sherley, a proponent of controversial theories about stem cells, also said that he has not been given the freedom to challenge scientific orthodoxy that white faculty members are given.

"This is a case of an uppity Negro, and there is a group of faculty who would like to see me move on," said Sherley, the only black out of about 40 professors in his department.

Asked to respond to Sherley's allegations, MIT released a statement saying: "An allegation of discrimination is a matter of great concern to MIT. . . . These are serious charges that will be handled seriously, according to our well-established procedures for handling grievances."

Sherley's accusations touch on one of MIT's self-acknowledged faults -- its trouble increasing the share of non-Asian minorities on its faculty. Black, Hispanic, and Native American professors represent about 4 percent of the 970-member faculty, though that proportion is no lower than at most science and engineering programs around the country.

Former President Charles M. Vest has said the greatest regret of his tenure was not achieving greater diversity among the faculty and graduate students.

"It is a cold, hard fact that there was a time when MIT was a clear leader in attracting women and minorities to science and engineering," he said at a faculty meeting last year. "I do not feel today that we can claim that same leadership position."

His successor, Susan Hockfield, who started her job last month, has cited diversity as a concern.

But only 41 percent of junior professors hired at MIT earn tenure, and there are factors that may complicate Sherley's case. The son of a Baptist minister, Sherley is vocal in his opposition to research using human embryonic stem cells because he thinks this amounts to sacrificing human lives. This stand puts him at odds with most of his scientific colleagues -- and once prompted a shouting match with another scientist at a faculty dinner at the Blue Room, a Cambridge restaurant, he said.

Several stem cell biologists contacted by the Globe yesterday said that Sherley's theories about adult stem cells, which do not require the destruction of embryos, are controversial, and that he had not published papers in the field's elite journals.

But Sherley said yesterday that Douglas A. Lauffenburger, the director of the Biological Engineering division, did not cite Sherley's publications as a reason for not supporting his tenure application. Lauffenburger was traveling yesterday and could not be reached.

If Sherley is not granted tenure this year, he will have to leave MIT. He was hired in July 1998 as an assistant professor, and later promoted to associate professor without tenure.

According to standard practice, Lauffenburger solicited letters from the world experts in the field to comment on the importance of Sherley's work. Then the senior faculty of the department met in December to discuss the letters, Sherley's publications, and his academic work in general, according to Sherley.

On Jan. 3, Sherley said, Lauffenburger told him that senior faculty did not believe that Sherley's case for tenure was strong enough, and that he would not forward it to the engineering council, the next step in the process.

In a later meeting, Sherley said that Lauffenburger told him the outside letters were strong, and that the fundamental problem was that he had not convinced the faculty that his approach to adult stem cell research was truly promising.

Sherley said that he has made major discoveries, and that MIT has filed 10 patent applications stemming from his work, and one has already been licensed, a sign of its commercial interest.

He stressed that he had not experienced any overt racism at MIT, but that the environment was hostile in myriad ways. He recalled many instances of being asked whose lab he worked in, when he runs his own lab. When he didn't take the advice of other scientists, he said, he was labeled "stubborn" instead of independent-minded.

After a faculty dinner devolved into a shouting match about the relative merits of embryonic and adult stem cells, he said he was no longer invited to the dinners. Slowly, he said, he became more and more ostracized, and the atmosphere become more poisonous.

"This is what racism looks like today," he said.

On Sunday, Sherley sent an e-mail to about 15 people at MIT, laying out his qualifications and examples of how he has been slighted.

"In light of MIT's current initiatives to increase diversity among the ranks of tenured faculty, you should all be embarrassed that I have to be subjected to this," he wrote. "But then, has there ever been a single African American tenure candidate at MIT who was not?"

In the e-mail, Sherley said he wanted Lauffenburger to give him a written apology and send his tenure case forward.

Yesterday, Sherley said he has made appointments with the dean of engineering and provost, both of whom were out of the country yesterday and could not be reached for comment. Sherley said that he also requested a meeting with Hockfield, but that her office had not replied yet, other than to acknowledge the request. "I have no plans to leave MIT," he said.

Hockfield did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.

Sherley's work focuses on discovering the intricate machinery that stem cells use to divide, and harnessing this machinery to coax stem cells to grow better in laboratory conditions.

Marcella Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@globe.com. Gareth Cook can be reached at cook@globe.com.