sometimes tenure denial is just tenure denial

A University of Chicago professor suspects he was denied tenure because of his blogging ways.

Web lore abounds with tales of people being fired for blogging about their jobs, but it seems to be an especially touchy issue in the academy, bound by both tradition and a tendency to discredit work done in the public sphere.

The concern, as elucidated by Drezner on his blog and in an August Tribune article on the dangers of blogging, is that maintaining a Web log will be seen as a diversion from the real scholarship an academic ought to be doing.

It could also be viewed, a widely discussed opinion piece published in the Chronicle of Higher Education argued, as a sign that this person, once tenured, is likely to tell tales out of school. And it could allow one's other work to be interpreted, in light of the blog, as glib or frivolous.
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