Marian College professor Pierre Atlas has an impressive analysis of the continuing controversy over IU-Indianapolis law school's personnel standards. Untenured associate professor William Bradford, you might recall, had an"excellent" rating in scholarship, teaching, and service; a publication record that exceeded that of some of his long-time senior colleagues; and yet received 5 negative votes (of a total of 15) on his reappointment.

To explain the outcome, Bradford has cited complaints about his" collegiality" coming from two leftist professors, complaints that seem to have increased after he publicly defended Bush's preemptive war doctrine and refused to sign a petition defending Colorado's Ward Churchill. Atlas received extensive comments from one of Bradford's key critics, Professor Florence Wagman Roisman, who dismissed Bradford's claims as"ridiculous." Indeed, Roisman continues, there could be no repercussions for Bradford's political positions, since"most of the faculty here are fairly conservative." To Roisman,"it is deeply offensive and outrageous that anyone would suggest that either Mary Mitchell [another left-wing Bradford opponent who has published next to nothing in 25 years as an IU faculty member] or I would base any decision about a colleague on their politics. We are devoted to the principle of academic freedom."

OK, let's take Roisman at her word. The vote, again, was on reappointment--which has a lower threshold than does tenure. I presume that IU does not normally deny reappointment to untenured faculty who are rated excellent in scholarship, teaching, and service. Roisman, Mitchell, and their three allies say that they did not take into account their disagreement with Bradford's political positions in voting against his reappointment. So, then, what criteria did they use? Perhaps they have very high standards, and believe that for a professor to be reappointed after his third year, he should have at least 30 law review articles or book chapters, rather than, as in Bradford's case, only 20. Or perhaps the Law School dean should require them to recuse themselves from future votes regarding Bradford.