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Iowa State Professor Who Was Denied Tenure Exceeds Department’s Tenure Standard by 350%

So just why was gifted astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez at Iowa State University denied tenure? Certainly not because he hasn’t fulfilled his university’s tenure standards for excellence in research. According to his own department’s standards, to be promoted to associate professor (with tenure),

excellence sufficient to lead to a national or international reputation is required and would ordinarily be shown by the publication of approximately fifteen papers of good quality in refereed journals.

So how many refereed articles has Gonzalez published? Ten? Twelve? Fifteen? Twenty? Actually, he has published 68 articles in refereed journals, thus exceeding his own department’s normal standard for research excellence by 350%! (Unfortunately, the Ames Tribune story about the denial of tenure to Gonzalez wrongly reports that this standard is a “minimum” requirement for tenure in his department. In fact, it is offered as the usual and ordinary benchmark for meeting his university’s research excellence standard.)

Since Gonzalez clearly far exceeded his university’s stated standard for research, the question again arises: Why was he denied tenure? It seems obvious that it was due to ideological bias against intelligent design—which has been on clear display at Iowa State during the past few years, as Gonzalez has been publicly attacked and demonized by faculty colleagues for his support of ID.

John G. West

Senior Fellow, Managing Director, and Vice President of Discovery Institute
Dr. John G. West is Vice President of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and Managing Director of the Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Formerly the Chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at Seattle Pacific University, West is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker who has written or edited 12 books, including Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society, and Walt Disney and Live Action: The Disney Studio’s Live-Action Features of the 1950s and 60s. His documentary films include Fire-Maker, Revolutionary, The War on Humans, and (most recently) Human Zoos. West holds a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University, and he has been interviewed by media outlets such as CNN, Fox News, Reuters, Time magazine, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post.

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