Never won Miss Collegiality

This story from City University of New York is of another history department with troubles. A popular and well-published young professor comes up for tenure and is denied by the department. The New York Sun is reporting on a letter from other historians saying this fellow was bounced for lack of "collegiality". And how, pray, did he act so uncollegially?

The collegiality category was troubling to at least one City University of New York trustee. �This is not a country club. This is a university,� Jeffrey Wiesenfeld told The New York Sun. He said that scholarship should be the overriding issue in tenure decisions. Mr. Wiesenfeld said he was confident that the CUNY chancellor, Matthew Goldstein, would make �the right decision� after reviewing the matter.

Mr. Johnson and his defenders say his two offenses against collegiality were objecting to a one-sided college-sponsored panel following the September 11 attacks and suggesting that a search that seemed predetermined to pick a woman ... instead be conducted on the merits.

�At the end of the day, all universities are the epitome of diversity. But there�s one diversity they don�t have � that�s diversity of opinion,� Mr. Wiesenfeld said.

If I'd known that was a requirement, I'd've never gone into academics! This silencing is not a surprise, however. When complete disrupters act out like our letter-writer last Friday but does so in a politically correct fashion, there's no damning of them in the university. Be outspoken on the other side, however, and woebetide the untenured faculty. That's why you'll see our link to Diversity of Thought on the permalinks to your left. (Story courtesy of Instapundit.)