Appeals Court Sides with Cornell in Tenure Dispute

A New York State appellate court sided with Cornell University Thursday in a tenure dispute case, overturning a lower court’s 2016 decision ordering a new tenure review for Mukund Vengalattore, assistant professor of physics. The new appellate court decision says that Cornell did not deny Vengalattore tenure in “bad faith.” Courts should generally defer to institutional judgment in such matters, the decision says, and Vengalattore’s tenure application included both “positive and negative opinions from an array of reviewers” about his work. And while the allegations against Vengalattore may have been “discussed” during his tenure review process, the decision says, “the record of evidence indicates that such allegations did not factor into the final tenure decision.”