9-Misc: Ignacio Chapela granted tenure at University of California, Berkeley (USA)

[GENET <coordination@genet-info.org>]

                                  PART I
-------------------------------- GENET-news -------------------------------

TITLE:  UC biotech critic reinstated, given tenure
SOURCE: Sacramento Bee, USA, by Edie Lau
        http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/12928883p-13776816c.html
DATE:   21 May 2005

------------------- archive: http://www.genet-info.org/ -------------------


UC biotech critic reinstated, given tenure

Ignacio Chapela, a University of California, Berkeley, ecologist who was
denied tenure after becoming internationally recognized and reviled for
his criticism of biotechnology, has been reinstated.

The university confirmed Friday that Chapela, 45, has been granted tenure
following an appeal by the scientist that brought a fresh review of his case.

University spokesman George Strait said the review involved a committee
with completely different members from the panel that recommended against
tenure.

The final decision came from Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, who is in his
first year at Berkeley and also was not involved in the earlier ruling.

"Birgeneau called the case 'complex,' and he and others could see how
very smart people could come to different opinions on this," Strait said.

Chapela had remained on the faculty in a kind of limbo while his appeal
was considered. He said Friday that he feels vindicated but also is
worried that tenure could "become a muzzle."

"I'm just much too clear about how difficult it is to maintain the
university free of undue influence," he said, "how difficult it is to,
for perfectly good people, perfectly fine-hearted people, to maintain
themselves as sharp and critical once you're part of the club."

The news of his tenure came this week in the midst of a protest Chapela
organized in which participants bicycled twice a day around the
construction site for a new campus bioengineering building to call
attention to what Chapela calls "the manipulation of life."

In 2001, Chapela became famous in international biotechnology circles
when he and graduate student David Quist published research in the
prestigious journal Nature demonstrating that pesticidal genes from
genetically engineered corn accidentally had contaminated traditional
corn grown by subsistence farmers in rural Mexico.

The controversial study was later disavowed by the journal over technical
details, although no one disputed the underlying discovery.

Three years before making that report, Chapela had spoken out against an
alliance between UC Berkeley's Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
and the biotech company Novartis. Under that liaison, the company gave
the department $25 million and access to trade secrets in return for
first dibs on potentially lucrative discoveries.

At a university with generally high enthusiasm for the potential of
biotechnology, the various events have earned Chapela a reputation as a
critic with activist tendencies.

Last month, Chapela filed suit against the UC system, alleging, among
other things, that the university had retaliated illegally against him
for publicizing problems with genetically engineered organisms and for
criticizing corporate influence on campus.

Strait said the suit played no part in the university's decision to grant
tenure.

Chapela said he may continue to pursue the suit regardless.

"The lawsuit is not about tenure at all," he said. "The lawsuit is about
what happened up to that point."


                                  PART II
-------------------------------- GENET-news -------------------------------

TITLE:  Chapela gets tenure!
SOURCE: Ignazio Chapela, USA & GMWatch, UK
        http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5261
DATE:   18 / 20 May 2005

------------------- archive: http://www.genet-info.org/ -------------------


Chapela gets tenure!

Wonderful news! Ignacio Chapela is to be granted tenure at the University
of California Berkeley.

See Ignacio's message below, including an invitation to celebrate the
news by involvement in the final day of events of the week long programme
he has been leading in Berkeley as part of "Dreams of Reason" - an
examination of the biotech dream in the context of the university.

More details of how to be involved, either in person, if that's possible,
or else via the web, can be found below.

While we celebrate this wonderful news, let's not forget just what an
outrageous example of the university-industrial complex out of control,
the denial of tenure has been. Tenure was denied to Ignacio despite the
fact that:

- 32 out of 33 voting members of Ignacio's department recommended that he
should be tenured at Berkeley, based on their observation of his record
and his performance;

- 17 out of 18 world-wide experts recommended that Ignacio should be
tenured based on an analysis of his record and performance;

- and 2 'secret' expert committees independently and unanimously
recommended that he should be tenured.

Ignacio was denied tenure due to vested interests and undue influence -
and for transparent reasons: above all, because of Ignacio's courage in
protesting UC Berkeley's prostitution of itself to Novartis - a
corporation whose character Ignacio fully comprehended, having worked for
Novartis before coming to UC Berkeley.

We also shouldn't forget that the denial of tenure has been but one part
of an orchestrated campaign of threats, reprisal and vilification that
this courageous scientist has suffered.

Nor should we forget all the other scientists who have come under attack
for standing up to corporate interests and the corruption of academia. In
most cases, these victims of corporate retribution never achieve even
partial redress - let alone the total vindication that thankfully Ignacio
has finally achieved.

------

Berkeley. Wednesday, 18 May 2005.

Dear friends, dear colleagues,

I. An announcement

I am proud to contact you with extraordinary news. Yesterday afternoon,
the Dean of the College of Natural Resources at Berkeley communicated to
me the intention of our new Chancellor to grant tenure to my position at
Berkeley.

This decision is a clear message of vindication not only of myself, but
also of the innumerable individual and collective efforts put into this
process by all of you. You have generously added your voices to the many
questions raised around my tenure review and demanded a process free of
conflict of interest or undue influence, and for this I am thankful. I
foresee no official recognition of your presence, but you should know
that it was precisely that which in the end achieved this result.

As happened two years ago, when I received an important communication
once I had decided to bring my office out into the street in front of
California Hall, the tenure decision reached me while in the midst of
another street intervention seeking to cast public light upon the newest
incarnation of the bioengineering edifice. A small number of us have been
using our bicycles all week to circulate messages about the hull of the
bioengineering building on the Berkeley campus, which will soon reach
completion (see http://www.pulseofscience.org).

The cycling has been difficult at times, not least because of highly
unseasonable rain in Berkeley, but this has not stopped us from
continuing to be present, in the measure that we can, to represent our
positions in the face of the biotech dream. We will continue with this
event, now in the light of the news about my tenure. Please come to
celebrate and maintain the questioning with us.

II. An invitation

I want to extend my invitation again to any and all who might wish to
join us on the last day of our week-long event in Berkeley (see http://
www.pulseofscience.org).

On Friday evening (9-10:30 pm), the week's events will culminate in a
gathering outside the bioengineering construction site:

Gray Brechin, brilliant analyst of California's, the nation's and the
world's environment will share his deep knowledge of the history
inscribed in the buildings, stones and peopled spaces in our midst. Gray
is author of "Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin", and
"Farewell, Promised Land: Waking from the California Dream". He is
working on a new project which explores the forgotten public endowment of
the New Deal to our country's landscapes.

We will also hear from Dan Siegel, the attorney representing my case, but
also a veteran student activist and tireless challenger of the
university's history of exclusionary practices.

The interventions will be concerted by Iain Boal, hub and spark of
intellectual life in the Bay Area and the world, historian of technics,
and, most recently, coauthor of Retort's "Afflicted Powers: Capital and
Spectacle in a New Age of War". Iain will share his historical
perspective on the bioengineering edifice - in Berkeley and beyond.

I will also make some remarks regarding my situation and the current
condition of biology and biotechnology.

For more information, see http://www.pulseofscience.org, where you will
find maps and directions, or simply come. We stage the cycling from the
platform at the entrance to the Greek Theatre on Gayley Road, across from
the bioengineering building. The speeches, slides, and illumination will
take place just to the north, in the grassy amphitheatre. Bring blankets,
bring food, music, but please also bring light (flashlights, laser
pointers, LED lights, etc.).

For those who cannot come, please note that a live webcast is planned for
Friday at 9-10:30 p.m. Pacific Time (see details below).

III. Whither my biology

The tenure decision has come in a manner to be expected: during one of
the quietest weeks on campus. The significance and implications of this
news is only slowly seeping into my consciousness, since I find myself
once again in a state of exhaustion while performing in a physically
strenuous street intervention.

So it is that I will need some time fully to grasp the new situation, to
consider what this decision brings as options, and to restructure my
personal and professional life around them. Nevertheless, I must admit to
a deep concern that the rare privilege of a tenured position in such a
university as UC Berkeley may become a muzzle. I am very aware that
becoming a vested member in the club of the tenured could cause me to
measure my words and thoughts more carefully. I have seen it happen, as I
have also watched the glint in the eye of colleagues dim, as they fitted
themselves to the academic cloth. But I have also seen the sharpness
undulled in those few among our large number who have maintained a
critical and uncompromising engagement with the real, an engagement that
is the straw in the shoe reminding them of the privilege granted them
through tenure by the generosity of the public, and not by pomp and
ritual, nor by autocratic decision, nor by presumed birthright.

I know of no other case where the public's role in the conferring of
tenure has been more evident. There is no doubt in my mind that I owe
this tenure to you, as well as to others beyond yourselves who, without
knowing, have been prodigal in support of a place to think and speak
freely. I trust that you, and those who will come in your wake, will help
me bear the burden of responsibility to public service that tenure in
this university entails. No doubt I will need your support now more than ever.

Tenure should not stop our questioning - yours and mine - any more than
rain has stopped our circulation of meaning around and about the
bioengineering edifice this week. Please come to any of the three
remaining cycling events, or to the gathering on Friday evening, to celebrate.

IV. If you cannot come, but would like to witness Friday's events

I have received a generous offer from a technically sophisticated group
to arrange for live streaming of the Friday proceedings. This will allow
anyone with an internet connection anywhere in the world to at least
listen and watch. For those of you interested, the details are below.

Yours,

Ignacio




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