Editor’s note: This story has been updated. It was originally published on February 22, 2021.
Dr. Cornel West is an intellectual giant, one of a select group of academics who have recognition outside their field; he has published a wide range of books and has frequently appeared as a talking head on TV, and he is known for his fiery progressive politics and criticism of race in the U.S. He was also just denied consideration for tenure by Harvard University, and is leaving the university over the dispute. He will be moving to Union Theological Seminary, where he has previously taught; he will be entering his new position with tenure.
Not Getting Tenure at Harvard Sun Feb 21, 2021 Cornel West shouldn t have had an academic career, let alone tenure at more Ivy League schools than you can shake a graduate degree at. Cornel West is the author of “The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought” and got a doctorate in philosophy for his aforementioned dissertation on the ethical dimensions of an ideology that killed millions of people in which he mentioned “the profound tragedy of the epochal change in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe” and argued that, “Marxist thought becomes even more relevant after the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union.”