Sherley Saga: Volume MCXXIV

When the lease is up and you've got no intention of leaving what's the next course of action? The landlord changes the locks on the door. That's precisely what happened to James Sherley, a stem-cell biologist at MIT, over the weekend. Sherley, who had embarked upon a hunger strike only to end it 12 days later, was locked out of his MIT laboratory as his appointment ended on June 30. He had planned on continuing his stay at MIT until he was satisfied with their response to his request for review of his pursuit of tenure at the prestigious University.

After making his public stand against what he claimed to be systemic racism in the MIT tenure process, Sherley had promised that even after the end of his appointment to the faculty he would stay at the University. In early June Frank Douglas a significant player in the biomedical field at MIT and the MIT-Harvard cooperative efforts announced that he would leave his post partly in support of James Sherley and his quest to force re-evaluation of the MIT tenure process. Douglas may have left peacefully but Sherley wasn't ready to go. As he stated in an email to the MIT president: "I maintain that the forced closure of my laboratory is an illegitimate injustice by your office…MIT is in active violation of the agreement it made with me on February 16 to develop a fair external resolution process without a deadline." MIT officials are standing their ground (with MIT police stationed in the halls) and have responded to Sherley by repeatedly touting the June 30 date, saying that his appointment was over on that date regardless if he planned to leave.