In another revealing act, Dean Jimmy Gentry lied in his letter of non-support that I did not have any juried or refereed work. Under oath, however, he testified that I did. That, too, is detailed in the summary of evidence. Here's an excerpt:

"As all this evidence shows, Gentry is a manager who pigeon-holes minority people. Gentry has never hired for any position a minority he or someone around him didn't already know. The very first time he ever had a chance to promote a minority (me), he personally corrupted that candidate's tenure review and led the charge to downgrade and disregard that minority person's record. He solicited and obtained external reviews that dismissed my work and directly connected their dismissal with my minority status and complaints about my treatment."

You can also download a PDF version of the "J-School Productivity " comparison that I put together, comparing my scholarly output with the 16 people who voted to deny my tenure.

You can send this page's address to a friend.

You can also send a comment directly to the University Administrators.

You can download a PDF version of the "Statement of Extraordinary Circumstances" that I was required to write before proceeding through the tenure process a second time. This document details the improprieties of my previous tenure review and compares my work with the published standards of the School, the University, and the AAUP. NOTE: the file is a little more than 2MBs.

Tenure at the University of Kansas has been perverted to oppress free expression and individuality.

Tenure was instituted to protect academics from being fired for having unpopular ideas and positions. Right now, at the University of Kansas and other institutions around the country, tenure is wielded as a sword to guarantee conformity and stifle dissent. Academic freedom is no longer guaranteed and tenure is used to exclude the very people it was instituted to protect—those who have unpopular ideas and positions. Now tenure is withheld from those who do not conform to the institutional culture. Now, as irrational and unenlightened as it may be, the most benign and harmless aspects of a person's identity, such as skin color, style of dress, hairstyles, choice of friends, choice of spouses, research philosophies, etc., too often result in the denial of an individual's right to value and retain his or her own individual cultural and academic choices.

This is not simply some imagined peril. Too many of us on this campus are suffering the same indignities. Watch the Kansas University Sexism & Racism Victims Coalition website for more horror stories from this campus.

These pages contain the record of my work, my teaching, and my service. You can judge for yourself whether or not I have earned tenure. For those of you in academe, think about whether you would want someone with my skills and creativity on your faculty. For those of you on tenure-track, let this story educate you about what you're up against if they've already started to question your teaching ability, the types of research and creative projects you pursue, or insinuate that you abuse your students. For those of you committed to fighting for freedom of expression, get angry.

As you read my record, try to get your mind around the fact that these people decided that I do not deserve to continue to develop my career here. They're saying I've somehow failed to meet even the minimum necessary standard for retaining my employment—a standard set by their own records. They're also saying they don't see a pressing need for someone like me; someone who has a proven record of convergence journalism creativity of more than twenty years. Someone who has persevered successfully to make a name in new media despite a great many obstacles. On these pages, you can see for yourself the record I developed; you can see what they're throwing away. You can come to understand the injustice and irrationality of their action and how—with no valid reason—they obviously denied me tenure to punish me for being who I am. Remember that I teach at the journalism school named for William Allen White, who won a Pulitzer Prize for defending freedom of expression. It's a sad irony.

When I started teaching here at KU five years ago, I was told that I would earn tenure if I simply fulfilled the School's requirement for one major research/creative project, maintained a satisfactory record of teaching, and served the School, the University, and the Profession. The University's regulations state that tenure is earned by the junior faculty member who shows evidence of "a successfully developing career."

Unfortunately, in the time since I began here I have experienced prejudice and oppression above the level I've experienced in all but a few other workplaces in my wearying 25 years as a minority professional seeking success in journalism.

I am one of only about 40 Asian-American or Hispanic journalism professors in the country. My father is a Filipino of Spanish descent who immigrated to the US from the Philippines. My name is the 944th most common Spanish surname out of approximately 1600. Because I'm not like them nor anyone they've ever worked with, many of my colleagues here allowed their ignorance and fears—and in some cases hatred—to lead them to apply negative racial stereotypes to me and to question my abilities, my intellect, my character, and my motivations. From the beginning, it was obvious to me that I would neither be judged for who I really am, accepted as an equal, nor allowed the fullest opportunity to succeed. Throughout my five years here, I have labored under that assumption, knowing that my record would need to be exemplary for me to succeed. I have worked to build a record that would be embarrassing to reject.

Admittedly, minority status alone does not automatically result in complete rejection. Those minority people and women who remain docile and servile are tolerated as long as they affect acculturation. But any minority people and women who succeed in this kind of workplace do so only after convincing the mainstream that they will be loyal soldiers--regardless of the consequences for their stigmatized peers. "Troublemaking," "uppity" minorities and women simply are not tolerated.

So, where I went wrong was that I have had what many of my colleagues see as fatal audacity because I actually publicly complained that I've been being treated unfairly. Then, after a particularly nasty and unnecessarily tumultuous confrontation with the former dean resulted in his resignation, many of my colleagues blamed me for his self-destruction. In the years since, I have been subject to an astonishing level of discourtesy, disregard, and disrespect. After vainly seeking help from the University and the State of Kansas, I filed suit in federal court, charging race-based discrimination and retaliation. The defendants are the School of Journalism, former Dean Myron A. "Mike" Kautsch, and current Dean James K. "Jimmy" Gentry.

From early on, I served with and supported diversity activist groups. I served as chair of the University's Human Relations Committee and am a founding member of the Kansas University Sexism & Racism Victims Coalition. As the person responsible for telling the world this story through the Coalition's website, it is no wonder that the Administration sees me as particularly "troublesome" and "uppity."

What's most hurtful about the decision of my colleagues is that each and every one of them knows why I'm here and why I've worked so hard to succeed here. They all know that I'm in Lawrence—the hometown of my ex-wife—to participate in the rearing of my son, who lives in my home four nights each week. Everything I've done here I've done to insure that he wouldn't be separated from either his mother or his father. In that light, the enmity and lack of common decency in their personal and political decision become all the more heinous.

I've received a letter of "explanation" from Richard S. Musser, chair of the J-School's promotion & tenure committee. Musser's letter includes this statement:

"In deliberations separate from and prior to the promotion and tenure vote, the committee rated your teaching as good, your research and creative performance as poor, and your service as poor."

As you read through the pages on this website, remember that the J-School's ratings range from Excellent, Very Good, Good, Adequate, Poor. You can read the entire letter.

I have also received letters from the Provost, first a form letter informing me of the University's final decision in my tenure review, and another empty letter of explanation. The Provost's letter of explanation includes:

"The Committee judged your record of research/scholarly activity as not meeting the expectations for promotion and award of continuous tenure. The committee did not find evidence of a coherent program of research/creative activity nor an indication of the development of a regional or national scholarly profile. The quantity and quality of the work presented was not judged to be sufficient for promotion or tenure in an academic setting. Your teaching was judged to meet minimum expectations and your service was judged as limited. Teaching and service cannot compensate for failure to meet the threshold level in research in the promotion and tenure decision."

You should know that I have pressed both Musser and the Provost for specific explanations of how my work fails to meet the School's and the University's expectations, but they have refused to produce such explanations.

Follow the links below to view my record as taken from the materials I submitted for tenure. I want the review itself to be reviewed.