Tenure Madness

How a shoo-in at Brooklyn College almost got the boot

KC Johnson is the perfect professor. The Brooklyn College historian is a great

teacher and a dogged and productive researcher.

After he had been at the college for two years, the department chairman gave him a review teeming with praise: “exemplary,” “impressive,” “little short of electrifying.” And, in a phrase that would later take on an ironic flavor, the chairman wrote that Mr. Johnson “has helped the department to create a new definition of scholarly collegiality.”

So how was it that, just months later, colleagues were calling him immoral, dishonest, disrespectful, and arrogant? What had he done to prompt one colleague to insist he “should not remain at Brooklyn College”?

How, in short, did the golden boy become persona non grata?

Welcome to tenure madness.

Battles over tenure denials are common in academe. Professors complain that they face shifting standards, subjective teaching evaluations, or prejudiced colleagues. More often than not, they lose. And sometimes, they should: the great researchers who can’t talk to students, the popular teachers who don’t spend any time in the library.

But KC Johnson is exactly the kind of professor the City University of New York needs. The system, of which Brooklyn College is a part, is striving to achieve goals set four years ago by a commission appointed by Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the mayor. The panel said the university should raise standards and graduation rates at its 19 campuses. CUNY’s glory days as a great populist institution had long since been left behind, sacrificed to lower academic standards and open admissions. So the university began offering free tuition to top students. CUNY also began looking for professors who could make a splash in both the scholarly world and the classroom.

Mr. Johnson fit the bill. He is bright, widely published, and wildly popular in the classroom. He is the kind of professor that students stay at Brooklyn College to work with, sometimes taking as many as 10 of his courses.

It is little wonder, then, that after evaluating the record, one former history professor at Brooklyn dubbed the Johnson case “the most corrupted tenure-review process” he had ever come across.

The case is a prime example of how horribly unfair the tenure process can be. He had to borrow money for a lawyer, work as his own paralegal, and call on colleagues and students to write letters and demonstrate on his behalf. He was also forced to allow himself to be portrayed as a conservative -- even though he is not -- to draw attention to his case, and he saw his fitness as a professor examined in the newspapers.

In the end, Mr. Johnson was one of the rare lucky ones. He was able to beat back a college and hold on to the only job he ever wanted.

The Dedication of a Monk

In another era, KC Johnson might have been a monk, cloistered away in some book-lined retreat. Instead, he lives alone in a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. It’s just him, his mattress on the floor, his sofa with missing cushions, and his desk. He often works till 2 a.m., sleeps for four hours, and starts all over again.

Mr. Johnson lives, in the words of his graduate-school mentor, a “puritanical” life. He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, doesn’t eat meat, and isn’t in a relationship. He has just one hobby outside work: running.

He was born Robert David Johnson, though everyone knows him now as KC (a nickname drawn from a Boston Celtics star). He grew up in suburban Massachusetts, the son of two public-school teachers. His parents now live in Maine, and he visits regularly, taking the train and the bus because he never learned to drive a car.

Every few weeks, he travels to North Carolina to see his younger sister. Her husband is paralyzed, and Mr. Johnson sends much of his salary to them.

Each morning, he dons his signature bow tie. But he is not a natty dresser. Instead, he sports white sweatsocks, Nikes, and shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows. He’s got a friendly, if mildly awkward, demeanor, and what one friend describes as a “silly grin.”

Mr. Johnson has always been the young one. He entered Harvard University at 17 and graduated in three years. By 25, he had earned his Ph.D., also from Harvard. And now, at 35, his publication record reads like that of a scholar twice his age. He has written three books, two published by Harvard University Press. His fourth, on the 1964 presidential election, will be published by W.W. Norton in 2004. And Cambridge University Press has given him a contract for a book about Congress and the cold war.

Students love him. In most classes, he lectures for 90 minutes without notes. Charles Dew, one of his colleagues at Williams College, where he taught for four years before coming to Brooklyn, says: “It was like he was made for this job.”

And his mind is filled with the details that history addicts adore -- like the last time Kansas elected a Democratic U.S. senator (1932) or the loser of the 1976 Pennsylvania race for the U.S. Senate (Rep. William J. Green III). At one point in his graduate seminar this spring, a student spoke about 1970’s three-way campaign in New York for a Senate seat. Mr. Johnson rattled off the election result: “I think it was something like 39-37-23.” Actually, the third-place candidate got 24 percent of the vote.

A Troubled Search

In the warped world of tenure approval, small events can have monumental consequences. For Mr. Johnson, the real trouble started when the department began a search for a new European historian. He had arrived from Williams as an untenured associate professor in 1999, at the same time that CUNY was being pressed to improve. In the spring of 2001, Mr. Johnson was named to the appointments committee, its only untenured member. As with most tasks, he dived in, reading and studying job applications before anyone else and, as usual, not hesitating to say exactly what he thought. Until that time, he and the chairman, Philip F. Gallagher, had gotten along well. But now they were on opposite sides of every vote.

From the beginning of the search, Mr. Johnson says, he felt the chairman was determined to hire a woman. In an e-mail message to Mr. Johnson, Mr. Gallagher said he wanted to interview “some women we can live with, who are not whiners from the word go or who need therapy as much as they need a job.” (Mr. Gallagher, like other critics of Mr. Johnson in the department, declined to comment for this article, saying he would not discuss personnel matters.)

Mr. Johnson describes the committee meetings as acrimonious. Some in the department argued over how scholarship and teaching ability should be evaluated. The votes were sharply divided.

Mr. Gallagher later wrote that some of Mr. Johnson’s opinions on one candidate were “preposterous, specious, and demeaning.”

That same fall, Mr. Johnson sought a promotion to full professor, a move that would have given him tenure. The chairman, in that glowing review months earlier, had suggested going for the promotion even though Mr. Johnson’s bid for tenure was not due for another year.

It should have been a slam dunk. Many professors in the department can’t hold a candle to Mr. Johnson’s research productivity. Despite being much older, several of them have published far less. For instance, Mr. Gallagher, in his 60’s, is the editor of one book, a collection of lectures given at Brooklyn College. He has not written a single book. And you won’t find the chairman’s C.V. on the department’s Web page, nor those of several other senior professors.

“The reason that they’re not out there is that they don’t have anything to put on them,” asserts Margaret L. King, a professor who shares a Brooklyn College office with Mr. Johnson.

Nevertheless, as the search was turning ugly, Mr. Johnson’s chances at tenure were shifting as well. As in any tenure case where a candidate’s research, teaching, and service are strong, collegiality can still tip the balance.

That December, three senior history professors exchanged e-mail messages wondering whether Mr. Johnson’s promotion would be smooth sailing. Edwin G. Burrows, who shared a Pulitzer Prize for a history of New York City, said he had heard “vague hints” that Mr. Johnson’s promotion could be jeopardized by his close friendship with Ms. King, whom many at the college see as ultra-conservative.

Donald F.M. Gerardi, another history professor, responded: “I can’t imagine anything short of high crimes could derail KC’s promotion.” But Mr. Gallagher, the chairman, suggested that Mr. Johnson had become a “polarizing force” and “nearly uncontrollable” because he did not take advice. Finally, he disparaged the very tactic that he eventually employed: “I’ve heard/seen the collegiality card played twice in the past 4 years,” he wrote, “and in each case the folks playing it were cut down at the knees by a swarming defense.”

Each of the three professors would later say that Mr. Johnson should be denied promotion.

The Old Bugaboo

Brooklyn College’s history department is not known for its gentility. Among the e-mail messages sent to Mr. Johnson before he became the departmental villain were ones labeling other history professors “fruitcakes,” “a doofus,” and “academic terrorists.” Why, then, did Mr. Johnson fall beyond the pale?

Because, his critics say, collegiality remains a vibrant criterion in tenure decisions. It’s a character or attitude that pervades one’s work. But many of the critics’ complaints look like little more than petty jealousy or trivial slights.

Stuart Schaar, a history professor, complained that during an earlier search, Mr. Johnson had systematically attacked Mr. Schaar’s preferred candidate. According to Mr. Schaar, Mr. Johnson and Ms. King “worked in tandem to denigrate all candidates except their own favorite one.” Mr. Schaar acknowledged that such criticism is normal, but said that this time the attacks were “off the mark.”

Bonnie S. Anderson, another history professor, complained that Mr. Johnson had once failed to say hello to her. Ms. Anderson also argued that it was uncollegial of Mr. Johnson to run for union representative when he knew that Mr. Schaar wanted the post. (Mr. Schaar was never even nominated, and Mr. Johnson was elected.)

Several senior professors in the department told administrators considering Mr. Johnson’s promotion that he was disrespectful, dishonest, and arrogant. “I’m thinking of when Snow White looks at the mirror,” says one of them, asking to remain anonymous. “It’s like, ‘Chairman, chairman on the wall, who is the smartest of them all?’ If KC is not acknowledged as the star and heir apparent, he becomes very upset or withdrawn or sarcastic.”

A Troubled Turn

In January 2002, Mr. Gallagher leveled two bureaucratic charges against Mr. Johnson, saying they illustrated a lack of respect for the chairman and a willingness to flout college rules. Both were minor complaints that in many cases would have been overlooked or handled with a simple conversation. But not in the world of tenure madness.

“Gallagher made a decision that because he could not control Johnson, he was going to get rid of him,” says Jerome Sternstein, the retired professor who pronounced the case the most corrupt he had ever seen.

Mr. Johnson began to see trouble swirling around him. Suddenly, the golden boy had lost his luster. He took the unusual step of hiring a lawyer before the college turned him down. The cost was steep, but he got help from his parents, moved to a cheaper apartment, and agreed to serve as his own paralegal, handling much of the paperwork; "$20,000 is worth saving your career,” he says.

In February, Leonard Gordon, a history professor about to retire and a strong supporter of Mr. Johnson, met with the college’s president, Christoph M. Kimmich. “I wanted to see if I could cut this thing off at the pass,” he says.

He sang the praises of the younger professor, Mr. Gordon says, and raised concerns about the chairman’s unfair behavior. “There are five junior people in the department,” he says. “Put Johnson’s publications in a stack, and put the publications of the other four in a stack. His stack is higher and better. It’s not that they’re not good, but he’s amazing.”

President Kimmich, a historian himself who worked in the department with Mr. Gallagher for years, was not swayed, saying that the chairman was a man of integrity. According to Mr. Gordon, the president suggested that he encourage Mr. Johnson to withdraw his application and wait a year.

That spring, votes started lining up against him. At a meeting of one committee considering his promotion, he was asked few questions about his research or teaching. Instead, most focused on the troubled search for the European historian. And four times he was asked what he would do to “heal the department.” Mr. Gerardi suggested to Mr. Johnson’s supporters that the young professor resign before the final decision went against him.

It had been less than a year since Mr. Gallagher, in writing, had suggested that Mr. Johnson seek promotion. Yet now the chairman told the promotion-and-tenure committee that he could not support Mr. Johnson. He agreed that the professor was an accomplished scholar, a classroom draw, and a willing volunteer for departmental tasks. But he said that since putting Mr. Johnson on the appointments committee, “a very different and darker side of him” had emerged. Others in the department saw him as a “destructive and disruptive force,” he told the committee. The committee, composed of the college’s other chairmen, agreed with Mr. Gallagher and voted overwhelmingly to reject Mr. Johnson’s bid for promotion.

Just days later, the history department held its annual awards banquet. All but one of the seven students who spoke thanked Mr. Johnson specifically. One said he had decided not to transfer from Brooklyn after working with Mr. Johnson. Another had taken 10 courses with him. Other professors in the department have not even taught 10 different courses in their careers, much less had one student enroll in all of them.

A Fight Takes a Toll

After the vote, Mr. Johnson didn’t give up. His last hope was Mr. Kimmich, the president. That summer, Mr. Johnson delivered a letter that outlined his complaints to the administration: procedural mistakes, inappropriate lobbying, and the misuse of collegiality as a criterion.

It was Mr. Kimmich’s chance to correct a decision for which the college would later be skewered. The president, however, upheld the decision.

“Our promotion-and-tenure process involving a large number of seasoned faculty is a very solid process, and I think it worked in this case,” he says now. “The committees and I believed that early promotion was, in fact, premature.”

Around the same time, Mr. Johnson’s annual reappointment (a decision that is generally pro forma for untenured faculty members) was turned down by the department. If the president agreed, Mr. Johnson would be out of a job in the spring of 2003.

At that point, Mr. Johnson knew he had to pull out all the stops in his fight for tenure. He had looked to the union for support, but he was not confident it would fight for him. He turned to the American Association of University Professors and the American Historical Association. He says they told him he had a good case, but they wouldn’t do anything until he had officially lost.

Eager to find support, Mr. Johnson spoke with a retired philosophy professor who happens to be married to the president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a tradition-minded organization co-founded by Lynne Cheney. The trustees’ association was willing to help immediately, providing advice and support for a public-relations campaign.

In the normal course of a tenure battle, a president’s rejection spells the end of a professor’s career at a particular college. But, in Mr. Johnson’s case, it was only the beginning.

The council’s first suggestion was to marshal scholarly support. Mr. Johnson called his graduate-school mentor and chairman of Harvard’s history department, Akira Iriye, who had already written a letter to President Kimmich. Mr. Iriye, working with a letter drafted with help from ACTA, got 24 prominent historians to sign on. They said they were dismayed by the case, calling Mr. Johnson “one of the most accomplished young historians in the country” and arguing that the decision reflected a “culture of mediocrity” at CUNY.

The letter started an avalanche of news coverage, including articles and editorials in The New York Times, The New York Sun, the New York Daily News, and The Wall Street Journal. Each editorial criticized Brooklyn’s decision. Helped along by the trustees’ group, many of the articles painted the case in ideological colors: an exemplary conservative professor being turned away by left-wing zealots. “My mind-set at the time was that beggars can’t be choosers,” says Mr. Johnson, the son of Democratic activists and a Hillary Clinton supporter. “My road to ACTA was accidental.”

Then, in one 48-hour period, more than 500 Brooklyn College students signed a petition supporting Mr. Johnson. They held rallies and marches. Last December, the president, denying he was pressured, overturned the department’s recommendation not to reappoint Mr. Johnson. It was the first time he had ever taken such a step. But by then, the matter had already reached CUNY headquarters.

Festering Dispute

Tenure battles usually end with professors skulking off, forever embittered by the lunacy of tenure decisions. Mr. Johnson’s case, by contrast, ended with that rare victory for the passed-over professor, thanks to his resources and serendipitous connections.

He was lucky to be at CUNY, where the system chancellor, not the campus president, is the final arbiter. (And this particular chancellor was Matthew Goldstein, who is known for building an honors college and improving key programs.) Mr. Johnson was also lucky to have a Board of Trustees whose members harp on raising standards. And he was lucky that all the journalistic attention bent his way. How many professors get their tenure battles covered in The New York Times?

Soon after Mr. Johnson’s complaints made it to the desks of university administrators, the white flag went up. Frederick P. Schaffer, CUNY’s general counsel, says he told Mr. Goldstein that some of the professor’s arguments “could be the basis for a successful grievance.” The chancellor later said he did not want “this dispute to fester,” and he encouraged Mr. Schaffer to resolve it.

In late January, the two sides reached a settlement in which the chancellor appointed a special committee of three historians from outside Brooklyn College to review the case. It marked the first time since taking office three years earlier that Mr. Goldstein had intervened in a tenure case. The committee voted unanimously to award promotion and tenure to Mr. Johnson. And the chancellor agreed. On February 24, after a year of fighting, Mr. Johnson had won.

Yet CUNY’s faculty senate would not let the matter rest. It furthered the university’s embarrassment by passing a resolution that called on Mr. Goldstein not to interfere in college governance. The message seemed to be: Justice doesn’t matter. Procedure is king.

The Faculty Council at Brooklyn College was equally perturbed, calling for its integrity committee to investigate the process used in the Johnson case.

But within Brooklyn’s history department, people are trying, grudgingly, to move on. “I am tired of this whole thing,” Mr. Schaar wrote in a recent e-mail message, declining an interview. “He won his case. What more does he want?”

Meanwhile, Mr. Kimmich continues to defend the college and his original decision. He says the process worked well, and he repeatedly declares that the case was about not tenure but promotion. No one ever denied Mr. Johnson tenure, he says. Technically, that’s true. But letters and e-mail messages make it clear that those involved saw the case as determining Mr. Johnson’s future on the campus. “For the sake of collegiality,” wrote Mr. Schaar at the time, “he should not remain at Brooklyn College.”

For his part, Mr. Johnson has no plans to leave Brooklyn College. But for years to come his tenure battle will be better known than his project on the tapes of the Johnson administration or his book on the 1964 election. It’s not fair that never again can he be the same perfect professor. Maybe, though, in an odd way, that doesn’t matter anymore. Now he has tenure.

HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT

Within a year, some members of the history faculty at Brooklyn College drastically shifted their views of KC Johnson, a colleague in the department. They went from respecting and praising him to seeing him as a destructive, polarizing force.

Philip F. Gallagher, department chairman

Edwin G. Burrows,

a history professor

http://chronicle.com Section: The Faculty Volume 49, Issue 37, Page A10