The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 5th, 2014
The M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, affiliated with the University of Texas, has escalated its challenge to the American Association of University Professors by rejecting the group’s assurance that any investigation of the center’s tenure practices will be fair.
Having turned the tables on the AAUP in July by demanding that the association answer a long list of questions justifying its authority in such matters, the cancer center last week made clear that it is dissatisfied with the answers provided by the association. As a result, Anderson officials said, they were reluctant to cooperate with the group’s investigation of the center’s dismissal of two professors.
Dan Fontaine, the center’s executive chief of staff, argued in a letter last week to Gregory F. Scholtz, director of the AAUP’s department of academic freedom, tenure, and governance, that the association “has apparently rejected well-recognized fundamental requirements of a fair investigation” as inapplicable to it on the grounds that it is neither an accrediting agency nor a formal governing body.