A recent article in the Islamic Monthly magazine alleges that the University denied tenure to former Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies professor Joseph Lumbard because he is a Muslim.

The article, which was published on May 20, was shared that afternoon by the Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies department’s official Facebook page. However, Lumbard was the one who posted it from the IMES page, according to an email to the Justice from Prof. Nader Habibi, the IMES chair. Lumbard now works for the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and has no affiliation with Brandeis, but he was previously the IMES chair and created the IMES Facebook page. “In no shape or form should this link imply an endorsement of the linked article by me or the IMES program,” Habibi wrote.

Lumbard, when posting the Islamic Monthly article through the IMES department page, wrote that though the University was founded on ideals of diversity, inclusion and pluralism, the article “reflects the reality of the university’s attempt to achieve these goals.” The post was later taken down by the department, before Lumbard could take it down himself. In an email to the Justice, Lumbard said he regrets posting it, saying, “it was not my place to do so.”

According to the article, Lumbard was twice denied tenure after being offered a tenure-track position in 2006, due to his dissertation on Ahmad al-Ghazali initially being denied publication and concerns about the approach Lumbard took to a book he co-authored, “The Study Quran.” The article calls the book “one of the most significant English language Quranic Studies books to date.”

Lumbard is quoted in the article as saying that the University does not want “powerful Muslim voices” and that Islamophobia has been allowed to “fester” at Brandeis, though Dean of Arts and Sciences Susan Birren is quoted saying that Brandeis does not tolerate Islamophobia. Birren wrote in an email to the Justice that “Joseph Lumbard’s suggestion of Islamophobia as a reason for his negative tenure decision is completely unfounded” and emphasized that the tenure decision process includes faculty within and without the professors’ department as well as outside consultation with experts in the field.

In his email to the Justice, Lumbard said that he feels “Islamophobia” is an imprecise term for the issues of “epistemic bigotry” he feels he faced. He added that these issues are widespread across academia and that colleagues of his have endured much worse. According to the article, when the time came for Lumbard’s tenure review in Sept. 2013, his due date to submit his dossier was moved up by four months without explanation, causing him to rush submitting his dissertation to publishers. He was denied tenure on this first review due to some negative reviews the unpublished manuscript had received and because the tenure board felt “The Study Quran” privileged a select few traditional interpretations of the Quran and did not include enough “modern” approaches, according to documents Lumbard provided to the Islamic Monthly.

Lumbard was denied tenure the first time in May 2013, but after voicing complaints about the procedure through a faculty committee, he was given a second chance. However, this second tenure application also failed in October 2014. This decision was mainly due to Lumbard not having published a scholarly monograph by the end of 2013. Although his dissertation had been accepted by a publisher at that point, it was accepted in 2014, outside of the tenure review’s time range. The department also argued that Lumbard had acted more as an editor on “The Study Quran” than someone using their own research methodology, which is a requirement for tenure. Caner Dagli, a scholar who collaborated with Lumbard on “The Study Quran,” refutes the claim in the Islamic Monthly article.

Dagli tells the Islamic Monthly, “The notion that ‘The Study Quran’ is not critical presumes that ‘critical’ means ‘revisionist’ and that scholarship on Islam is essentially a debunking exercise.”

Lumbard appealed his decision again, arguing that the University had admitted to significant procedural issues in reviewing his case, such as the moved deadlines and trouble vetting candidates for his review board on the first application. However, the evaluations from his first application were used as evidence against him in the second application, even though the University had admitted that those evaluations were part of a system marred by procedural errors. In response, then-University President Frederick Lawrence sent Lumbard a memo saying there were no significant procedural errors in his case. Lumbard wrote to the Justice that in doing so, Lawrence “established a tenure process unlike any other at Brandeis. A university cannot randomly establish a different tenure process for any single professor, whether that professor is a member of a minority or not.”

Lumbard wrote that while it would be “difficult to imagine circumstances under which I would return to Brandeis,” this is not because of anger, and he holds no grudges. “The issues I faced really became complicated when the former president’s office got involved. As with many other incidents in his brief tenure, he handled it very poorly.”

In her email to the Justice, Birren emphasized that University documents Lumbard received upon his tenure rejection point to problems with his scholarly work and don’t mention his religion. “I regret that Doctor Lumbard feels negatively about the University,” she wrote. “I know, however, that he received a fair hearing of his tenure case, based upon standard tenure criteria used by universities across the country.”