Smoking gun

Education | Iowa State denied tenure to an ID-supporting scientist and then tried to cover up why | Mark Bergin

Gonzalez: “I need to clear my name.”

The message from Iowa State University remains unchanged—namely that last spring's denial of tenure to astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez stemmed from inadequate scholarly credentials, not his favorable view of Intelligent Design.

But internal university documents and emails, recently released in compliance with public records requests, tell a different story. Messages circulated among ISU faculty and administrators reveal hostility toward ID and consequent opposition to Gonzalez. What's more, these private communications betray an effort to conceal the true reason for denying tenure to an acclaimed and accomplished scientist.

"All these emails clearly show that faculty had prejudged my case based entirely on my ID views about a year before the tenure case came down," said Gonzalez, whose pioneering work in astronomy has appeared in such prominent journals as Nature, Science, and Scientific American.