First, I’m sorry to hear that–as with any colleague, even when it’s an obvious decision (and this one wasn’t obvious), I hate to see it.
The problem with some suggestions that it is due to blogging is that Dan’s at the University of Chicago and any tenure decision is a far higher standard than at other Universities. Dan would have received tenure at most other schools other than Ivy’s or Ivy like institutions where he’d still have a great shot most of the time.
The truth is that overall tenure decisions result in good results…high quality and productive academics being given large degrees of freedom of inquiry. The problem is that like all outcomes in general, there are exceptions and some well qualified people fall through. Whether Dan should have gotten tenure is a question for his colleagues in one sense. His publication record is quite impressive, but again, the standard at U Chicago isn’t just to be a productive working scientist who will make contributions to the field, but a social scientist who will dramatically contribute to the field. Where that line is, is hard to define. In addition, Dan’s work is evaluated by outside people who, depending on their work and how compatible it is with Dan’s, may simply have said he is a good scholar when U Chicago is looking for a great scholar.
I think the tenure granting rate is around 50% at most institutions and I don’t know if U Chicago is above or below that or if PoliSci there is higher or lower than the rest of the institution, but assuming from two recent cases it was the blogs fault is making a mistake.
And while I feel bad for Dan, he’ll land on his feet with his CV and a high quality institution will grant him tenure if he stays in academia (something I hope he does). He’s got books with great academic press’ and some high quality publications in high powered journals.
As someone who hopes to be in a tenure track job eventually, I can say, he’ll have a far better job than I hope to get.
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