The Austin-American Statesman reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nRecords obtained by the Statesman showed that Chaar L\u00f3pez exceeded the bar for tenure and that his American studies colleagues recommended him for promotion pending approval from UT President Jim Davis, a presidential committee and the system Board of Regents. In February, the tenure committee unexpectedly denied Chaar L\u00f3pez\u2019s tenure application without explanation. He told the Statesman that he fears it was because his research on the ways border-surveillance technologies are tied to history and race is controversial among conservative officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cIv\u00e1n\u2019s case is a warning for all faculty across the university,\u201d Lauren Gutterman, former chair of the American studies department, told the Statesman. \u201cBecause it suggests that achieving excellence in your field is no longer enough to secure tenure and promotion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chaar L\u00f3pez has worked at UT Austin since 2020 and must now restart the tenure process at another university. He told the Statesman the rejection felt unjust.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ask questions that maybe someone in a position of power might disagree with\u00a0\u2026 We ask these questions because we\u2019re trying to get at what is the truth,\u201d Chaar L\u00f3pez said. \u201cI did all of that work\u201411 years of work\u2014trying to achieve the security of tenure so that I can maybe ask even more difficult questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed, a UT spokesperson said, \u201cTenure is privilege, not a right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUT does not rubber stamp decisions of such importance. The tenure review process is handled thoughtfully, fairly, and professionally with a thorough system of checks and balances to ensure the highest standards of teaching and research,\u201d the spokesperson wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chaar L\u00f3pez has worked at UT Austin since 2020. Border-surveillance scholar Iv\u00e1n Chaar L\u00f3pez was denied tenure at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,4144,163,64,8894,2184,223],"class_list":["post-380983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-career","tag-education","tag-events","tag-higher","tag-jobs","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}