Tenure Review: Process and Outcomes

Recent higher education litigation challenges the right of universities or colleges to conduct tenure reviews that deny the candidate access to the information upon which the decision to deny tenure was made. Universities protest that open reviews will be less candid and will result in tenure being granted to unqualified faculty. This article presents the results of the first empirical study of confidential/closed reviews, concluding that there is no evidence of a relationship between degree of disclosure in the process and the selectivity of the outcome.