The case, filed by, among others, lawyer and FIRE co-founder Harvey Silverglate, is Edelman v. President & Fellows of Harvard College; an excerpt:
Plaintiff Benjamin Edelman brings this suit in law and equity to correct the harm that Harvard University has caused to his career, livelihood, and reputation by unlawfully and brazenly ignoring its own policies, and acting in bad faith, when evaluating his conduct in conjunction with his candidacy for promotion to tenure at Harvard Business School ("HBS"). The mixed report from the relevant committee was the sole negative factor in his tenure process, and caused the failure of his candidacy.
Plaintiff was a tenure-track professor at HBS from 2007 until 2018. He is a world-leading expert on online markets and the internet. His academic work, teaching, and service at HBS were unusually clearly worthy of tenure, even by HBS's high standards.
Plaintiff was the subject of negative publicity, unrelated to his role at HBS, in 2014. In preparation for his review for tenure in 2015, Harvard Business School convened a Faculty Review Board ("FRB") to determine whether he had engaged in misconduct that should affect his candidacy. The FRB process was governed by a then-new HBS policy, the Principles and Procedures for Responding to Matters of Faculty Conduct (the "P&P").
Following the 2015 review, HBS determined to delay Plaintiff's candidacy for tenure by two years, while requiring him to take specific steps to contribute to the HBS community and demonstrate his fitness for tenure. He completed, and excelled at, each of these tasks.
In 2017, although there had been no new publicity or allegations of misconduct, HBS again convened an FRB. In violation of the clear terms of the P&P, in violation of HBS's promise to follow the P&P, and in violation of Plaintiff's reliance on that promise, HBS then used the FRB as a forum for anonymous complaints about Plaintiff's character.
