Judge Rejects Former HBS Professor’s Tenure Lawsuit Against Harvard

A Massachusetts Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that Harvard did not breach its contract with former Harvard Business School associate professor Benjamin G. Edelman ’02 when it denied him tenure, ending a three-year legal fight over HBS’s internal review procedures.

Justice Kenneth W. Salinger granted Harvard’s motion for summary judgment and denied Edelman’s cross-motion in a 38-page decision, finding that Edelman could not prove the Faculty Review Board’s procedures were contractually binding, that Harvard violated those procedures, or that any alleged missteps changed the outcome of his tenure case.

“Edelman had no contractual right to receive tenure,” Salinger wrote.

Salinger dismissed Edelman’s six allegations of procedural violations as based on a “strained, persnickety, and incorrect reading of the FRB Procedures.”

He wrote that then-HBS Dean Nitin Nohria’s decision not to recommend Edelman for tenure was a matter of “broad discretion,” and that Edelman had presented no evidence beyond speculation that the result would have been different absent the procedural errors he alleged.

Edelman wrote in a Wednesday statement to The Crimson that he was “disappointed in the decision” and called it a “terrible precedent.”

“The Court’s holding that Harvard need not follow its own policies should concern all university faculty who rely on promises made to them by their employers,” he wrote. “Students, too, should be alarmed. If faculty can’t count on policies that are sent to every faculty member and discussed and approved in faculty meetings, can students count on policies posted to a web site or handbook?”

Both HBS and University spokespeople declined to comment on the decision.

Edelman filed the lawsuit in February 2023, around five years after he was denied tenure, arguing that Harvard failed to follow its own required procedures when reviewing his conduct.

In an amended complaint, he advanced three claims: that the FRB Procedures document functioned as a binding contract that Harvard breached; that the 2017 review process violated basic standards of fairness and good faith; and that Harvard should be held liable for failing to honor the procedures on which Edelman said he relied.

Edelman was first considered for tenure in 2015, when HBS administrators said incidents from the previous year raised concerns about whether he met the school’s “Community Values” standard.

In January 2014, Edelman published a blog post accusing the United Kingdom company BlinkX of deceptive practices based on research funded by short-selling firms, after which the company’s stock price fell sharply. Later that year, emails he sent to Sichuan Gardens, a Brookline restaurant, demanding a refund over a $4 overcharge went viral.

Nohria convened the FRB, which found that Edelman “did not uphold the School’s Community Values” and described a pattern of “apology followed by reiteration of the merits of his side of the story.” A faculty committee recommended extending Edelman’s appointment by two years to let him demonstrate he had learned from the concerns, and he accepted.

When the FRB reconvened in 2017, its report found Edelman “had not shown he had learned from the prior incidents.” It flagged his decision to file a class-action lawsuit against American Airlines without alerting Nohria and raised concerns about inconsistent disclosures of nearly $2 million in payments from Microsoft while he published papers critical of Google, a Microsoft competitor.

Faculty were sharply divided, and the Standing Committee split evenly on Edelman’s case. The full Appointments Committee voted with 57 percent in favor of granting him tenure and 40 percent opposing. Nohria concluded that Edelman had not met the school’s collegiality standards.

In his ruling, Salinger rejected each of Edelman’s claims. Addressing Edelman’s claim that the FRB Procedures constituted a contract, the court found no evidence that Harvard ever promised its faculty the procedures had to be followed “in full” in a tenure case.

Salinger wrote that the Green Book — HBS’s overarching tenure policy — reserves the dean’s discretion to “initiate or approve variances” from promotion procedures.

The court also pointed to Edelman’s own conduct as evidence against his claim. When the FRB reviewed his case in 2015 using the same approach he later challenged, Edelman was aware the FRB had not disclosed all its evidence — and did not object.

Salinger cited legal precedent holding that “unless they make a clear contractual commitment to the contrary, colleges and universities have broad discretion in deciding who should receive tenure.”

He distinguished Edelman’s case from prior decisions where employment policies were found contractually binding, writing that those concerned termination or denial of promised compensation — not discretionary promotion.

Salinger also found that even if the FRB Procedures were binding, Edelman failed to show Harvard breached them. Salinger rejected the argument that FRB members were biased, writing that “nothing in the FRB Procedures bars tenured faculty members who know a tenure candidate” from serving on the board.

He also dismissed Edelman’s contention that the FRB mischaracterized evidence, writing that universities retain broad latitude to weigh testimony using their own judgment, and that courts should not dictate what evidence a school may consider in tenure decisions.

Salinger found that Nohria testified under oath that he denied tenure because of the BlinkX, Sichuan Garden, American Airlines, and Microsoft-Google disclosure incidents — and would have reached the same conclusion regardless of the FRB’s findings on other matters. Edelman presented no evidence to the contrary, Salinger wrote.

Edelman wrote in his statement that he is considering an appeal.

—Staff writer Katharine E. Chavez can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @KatharineEC7.

—Staff writer Siena G. Devine Guzmán can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @sienadevinee.