Denied Tenure, Critic of Research Deal Plans Legal Action Against U. of California By GOLDIE BLUMENSTYK
A former professor at the University of California at Berkeley who contends that he was denied tenure because of his persistent criticism of the university's research deal with a biotechnology company says he will announce today that he is taking legal action against the university.
The professor, Ignacio H. Chapela, was denied tenure in 2003 despite positive recommendations from two review committees. In an usual step, the university then convened a third committee to review his work, and that committee recommended against granting him tenure.
The case has drawn attention from academics around the world who say Mr. Chapela is being punished for his critiques of industry influence in academe. He was an outspoken critic of Berkeley's five-year, $25-million deal with a company then known as Novartis. At the same time, some of his scholarship has also been the focus of scientific controversy.
The deal that he criticized, which ended in late 2003, gave the biotechnology company first rights to commercialize basic research by two dozen faculty members in a department within the College of Natural Resources.
Mr. Chapela was an assistant professor of microbial ecology in another department in that college -- a department whose work included research into the safety of bio-engineered crops. Mr. Chapela has said that the relationship with Novartis created corporate ties between the company and the university that compromised the participating faculty members' scientific independence.
Last summer, a team of outside scholars commissioned by Berkeley to evaluate the deal concluded that the relationship with Novartis had created a potential conflict of interest among administrators that had adversely affected Mr. Chapela's tenure review (The Chronicle, August 6, 2004). Mr. Chapela's supporters also say that some of those who opposed his tenure had personal and financial ties to the biotechnology industry.
Mr. Chapela and his research became controversial when he and a graduate student published an article in Nature in November 2001 that said that native corn in Mexico had been contaminated by material from genetically modified corn. A 1998 law had made it illegal to plant transgenic corn in Mexico.
Six months after the article appeared, and after receiving a number of letters contesting the research, the journal published an editorial note saying that "the evidence available is not sufficient to justify the original paper" and that the editors wanted "to allow our readers to judge the science for themselves" (The Chronicle, April 26, 2002). Mr. Chapela has said that he may have been a victim of an industry-financed smear campaign.
After being denied tenured, he contested the decision and was granted extra time to continue working at Berkeley, but his employment ended in December 2004. He plans to announce his legal action at a news conference on the Berkeley campus.