West accused the university of spiritual rot. How sad it is to see our beloved Harvard Divinity School in such decline and decay, he wrote in a letter. The disarray of a scattered curriculum, the disenchantment of talented yet deferential faculty, and the disorientation of precious students loom large.
Harvard denied him an opportunity to receive tenure, the indefinite academic appointment that makes it extremely difficult to remove professors.
The resignation also comes as concerns about how academic institutions treat Black scholars were made. West, graduated from Harvard and earned a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University, and taught at Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Union Theological Seminary over the years. In 2002 he left the school after a public dispute with Harvard s then-President Lawrence Summers, but rejoined in 2017.
Cornel West, here at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in 2016, suggests in his resignation letter that politics were a factor in Harvard University s decision not to extend tenure to him. Credit: AFP via Getty Images
Cornel West Has Announced He s Leaving Harvard And Says The School Has Lost Its Way By
at 11:14 am NPR
Cornel West, one of the nation s foremost Black scholars and an outspoken progressive activist, has announced his resignation from Harvard University, accusing the school of intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths.
West, who earlier this year said he was giving up his drive for tenure at Harvard Divinity School to rejoin the faculty at Union Theological Seminary, posted what he called my candid letter of resignation to Twitter late Monday.
Published July 13. 2021 6:25PM
Timothy Bella, The Washington Post
Cornel West, considered one of the most prominent Black philosophers and progressive activists in the country, announced Monday that he has resigned from his position at Harvard University s Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., saying the institution is in a state of decline and decay and spiritual rot.
In a resignation letter dated June 30 and posted to Twitter, West suggested that discrimination at the university drove him to leave the Divinity School. The 68-year-old scholar said in March that he was abandoning his quest for tenure at Harvard to return to the Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he first taught more than four decades earlier.
Zach Gibson / AFP via Getty Images
Originally published on July 13, 2021 2:21 pm
Cornel West, one of the nation s foremost Black scholars and an outspoken progressive activist, has announced his resignation from Harvard University, accusing the school of intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths.
West, who earlier this year said he was giving up his drive for tenure at Harvard Divinity School to rejoin the faculty at Union Theological Seminary, posted what he called my candid letter of resignation to Twitter late Monday.
In it, he writes that the disarray of a scattered curriculum, the disenchantment of talented yet deferential faculty, and the disorientation of precious students loom large at Harvard.