https://www.npr.org/2021/07/13/1015632217/cornel-west-has-announced-hes-leaving-harvard-and-says-the-school-has-lost-its-w

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Cornel West Releases Resignation Letter From Harvard In a resignation
letter posted to Twitter on Monday, West says the university is
suffering from "intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep
depths."

Education

Cornel West Has Announced He's Leaving Harvard And Says The School
Has Lost Its Way

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July 13, 20212:14 PM ET

Deepa Shivaram

Twitter
[gettyimage]
Enlarge this image

Cornel West, here at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in
2016, suggests in his resignation letter that politics were a factor
in Harvard University's decision not to extend tenure to him. Zach
Gibson/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Zach Gibson/AFP via Getty Images

Cornel West, here at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in
2016, suggests in his resignation letter that politics were a factor
in Harvard University's decision not to extend tenure to him.

Zach Gibson/AFP via Getty Images

Cornel West, one of the nation's foremost Black scholars and an
outspoken progressive activist, has announced his resignation from
Harvard University, accusing the school of "intellectual and
spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths."

West, who earlier this year said he was giving up his drive for
tenure at Harvard Divinity School to rejoin the faculty at Union
Theological Seminary, posted what he called "my candid letter of
resignation" to Twitter late Monday.

In it, he writes that the "disarray of a scattered curriculum, the
disenchantment of talented yet deferential faculty, and the
disorientation of precious students loom large" at Harvard.

    This is my candid letter of resignation to my Harvard Dean. I try
    to tell the unvarnished truth about the decadence in our
    market-driven universities! Let us bear witness against this
    spiritual rot! pic.twitter.com/hCLAuNSWDu

    -- Cornel West (@CornelWest) July 13, 2021

The 68-year-old scholar suggests in the letter that politics were a
factor in Harvard's decision not to extend tenure to him, citing his
outspoken support for the Palestinian cause.

"We all knew the mendacious reasons given had nothing to do with
academic standards. ... I knew my academic achievements and student
teaching meant far less than their political prejudices," West says
of the Harvard administration.

When reached by NPR, Harvard University declined to comment.

Nikole Hannah-Jones Chose Howard Over UNC. HBCUs Hope It's The Start
Of A New Era

Education

Nikole Hannah-Jones Chose Howard Over UNC. HBCUs Hope It's The Start
Of A New Era

The battle over tenure echoes the recent fight involving another
high-profile Black scholar, Nikole Hannah-Jones, who was originally
denied tenure at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. UNC
later decided to grant Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist behind The New York Times' "1619 Project," a position at
the journalism school with tenure, but she declined and is now
joining the faculty at Howard University.

  * UNC tenure
  * Harvard University
  * Cornel West

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