They are however, ignoring the part where he was declined tenure for no good reason, and despite being a professor at other prestigious universities. He was also paid badly and was treated poorly when it came to sabbaticals.

In other words he was sidelined for no good reason. This is sad.

There are some questions though, why did he leave Princeton? I mean what difference does it make if you're at Princeton or Harvard, they are both great schools.

It all seems a bit self-centered. Why publicize the letter, other than to signal and cue the outrage mob?

The letter helps make the point of how absurd these heavily-endowed universities have become.

He's a PR intellectual. He gets way too much air time for his contributions to humanity. A boring figure.

Summer salaries are usually paid for by research funding raised by the professor from outside sources. Typically you make sure your students are supported, then travel and operating costs for your group, then if any funding is left over, you can pay yourself summer salary.

Is the university preventing him from raising funds? If he is not raising funds, then the expenses above could be unmet. It's hard to get tenure without covering your costs.

I hope and pray you and your family are well! This summer is a scorcher! Here is my brief and candid letter of resignation: "How sad it is to see our beloved Harvard Divinity School in such decline and decay. The disarray of a scattered curriculum, the disenchantment of talented yet deferential faculty, and the disorientation of precious students loom large. When I arrived four years ago - with a salary less than what I received 15 years earlier and with no tenure status after being a University Professor at Harvard and Princeton - I oped and prayed I could still end my career with some semblance of intellectual intensity and personal respect. How wrong I was! With a few glorious and glaring exceptions, the shadow of Jim Crow was cast in its new glittering form expressed in the language of superficial diversity: all my courses were subsumed under Afro-American Religious Studies, including those on Existentialism, American Democracy, and the Conduct of Life, no possible summer salary alongside the lowest increase possible every year. Yet I delivered two convocation addresses and one commencement speech in four years. I was promised a year sabbatical but could only take one semester in practice. And to witness a faculty enthusiastically support a candidate for tenure then timidly defer to a rejection based on the Harvard administration's hostility to the Palestinian cause was disgusting. We all new the mendacious reasons given had nothing to do with academic standards. When my committee recommended a tenure review - also rejected by the Harvard administration - I knew my academic achievements and student teaching meant far less than their political prejudices. Even my good friends in the Afro-American and African Studies Department were paralyzed, given their close relations to the administration. And after teaching extra courses, including five courses in one year, this silence continued. When the announcement of the death of my beloved Mother appeared in the regular newsletter, I received two public replies (just as that of my colleague Dr. Jacqueline Olga Cooke-Rivers who received none when her blessed Mother died). Any ordinary announcement about a lecture, award or professional advancement received about twenty replies! This kind of narcissistic academic professionalism, cowardly deference to the anti-Palestinian prejudices of the Harvard administration, and indifference to my Mother's death constitute an intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths. In my case, a serious commitment to Veritas requires resignation - with precious memories but absolutely no regrets!"

Cornel West

Reading the letter I see a few extremely salient complaints:

1. His first complaint is that he was a token diversity hire. Instead of his courses being placed in the general coursework section, his courses were put under 'African American' religious studies. As many minorities know, this is a way of discounting minority viewpoints. No one would dare dream put a history class taught by a white professor under the 'European American studies' portion. If he's teaching a course supposedly on American democracy, then surely it should go under history or social sciences, not 'black people social sciences'.

2. Failure to compensate an appropriate amount given West's celebrity status. Again, I don't particularly like West's politics, but he is clearly quite the celebrity. It seems he was not compensated appropriately, despite Harvard being happy to use his celebrity status to further their own reputation. Pretty standard employee complaint.

3. His tenure application was denied despite Harvard asking him to leave an existing tenured professorship. He believes his application was denied not due to his teaching but because Harvard disagreed with one of his political views. Again, as much as I disagree with West's politics, it seems incredibly disingenuous to profit off of a new employee's celebrit, tempt him to join you from a stable job with promises of future stability, and then to deny him tenureship because he has differing opinions on some random issue.

4. Despite supposedly wanting a close faculty, no one in the faculty would stand up for him when his tenure was denied. The fact of his mother's death not soliciting any response was not brought up in isolation as other comments claim (current top comment does). It was brought up in reference to the fact that no one on faculty would dare speak up to the administration on his behalf and it seemed like, after tenure was denied for his beliefs on Palestine, he was ostracized from his department. Many academics know that being ostracized in your department is not good.

5. Furthermore, it seemed that Harvard has a problem in not focusing on the whole person. Instead, it's developed into a technocratic institution (which I know from personal knowledge, West decries).

So yeah, all the people saying this is only about his mother or because of palestine are either being incredibly dense or purposely deceitful.

Again, I disagree with basically everything West stands for, but I agree with him that he shouldn't essentially be exploited and then canceled. That goes against every shred of common decency.

I have never seen Cornel West talk live - I need to fix that.

I feel like this is the second news cycle for this departure, even.

(To be fair, his list of courses taught seem broader than "divinity". )

It's probably intended to land best with people who are familiar with how communication works in that school/department, and the general atmosphere there, I'd expect.

Is it strange for folks to talk about a newborn child, or marriage at work? Conversely, what about infant death or divorce? Can you bring your "whole self" or just the good news?

My theory:

Many of them are passionate, and it makes them good at their job, but their personalities and their job and the relationships with their peers seem almost inseparable... resulting in the sort of mish mash of professional and personal life that seem inseparable. For some almost everything can be personal to some extent... and in some cases I would find it inappropriate to mix all that up in the way some (not all) of them do at times.

It doesn't make them wrong, but it makes it really hard to understand. Such things happen outside of academia too, but it seems particularly prevalent there in my experience.

At least that's how I explain it to myself when I bump into such things.

One wonders if he had gotten tenure and received much beloved public replies he would resign thereafter.

... that's because no one would dare dream to have a 'European American studies' program in the first place.