Professor Ends Hunger Strike He Began After Being Denied Tenure

Juan J. Rojo, the assistant professor of Spanish who went on a hunger strike last week after being denied tenure at Lafayette College, ended his strike on Monday morning, according to news reports and a statement he posted on Facebook.

In the statement he said he wanted people to understand that ending his liquids-only fast “was a decision consciously made rather than me simply giving up.” He also said he hoped the attention his protest had drawn to “the larger issue” of flaws in the tenure process would “spark a discussion beyond Lafayette.”

Mr. Rojo announced his plan to begin a hunger strike last Tuesday during a faculty meeting. He criticized the decision by the college’s president, Alison R. Byerly, to override the judgment of both his department and a universitywide committee, which had recommended granting him tenure. He called her action a threat to faculty self-governance and questioned the college’s commitment to faculty diversity.

A spokesman for Lafayette said last week that the college had followed all of its regular procedures in handling Mr. Rojo’s tenure application.