“The claims put forward by Joel Westheimer are false. It is unfortunate that Assistant Professor Westheimer has elected, for his own reasons, to avoid an assessment by his faculty peers of his grievance over denial of tenure and instead, chosen to use a political process by attempting to place his case before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB is an external agency lacking any experience and expertise in evaluating tenure cases and is not attuned to the processes and mores of the academic world.
“It is an insult to the faculty who participate seriously in tenure matters to suggest that such a peripheral and irrelevant matter as Professor Westheimer’s testimony would have any impact on their tenure recommendations, and that insult is compounded by his circumvention of a review of this process by his peers.
“We are also chagrined and disturbed that Professor Westheimer and his supporters have chosen to misrepresent the facts as to the confidential reviews that were part of his tenure review process through the narrowly selective distribution of only a portion of documents relating to his case. Professor Westheimer has been advised in writing of the reasons he was denied tenure, and they did not in any way relate to his testimony before the NLRB; he is at liberty to release the statement of reasons to the press, yet he has apparently chosen to withhold it.
“New York University has a policy of confidentiality with regard to tenure decisions the norm in the academic world. We will not act contrary to that policy by releasing the details of the reasons for denial of tenure. We stand by the decision that was made through appropriate and legitimate academic review.”