Three Years After Harvard Tenure Denial, Lorgia García Peña Accepts Professorship at Princeton

Three years after Lorgia García Peña was denied tenure at Harvard — a decision that sparked backlash against the University’s tenure review process — the ethnic studies scholar has accepted a full professorship at Princeton University.

García Peña, a former associate professor of Romance Languages and Literature at Harvard, was denied tenure in late November 2019. More than 100 faculty members subsequently called for an examination of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ tenure process, prompting FAS Dean Claudine Gay to initiate a review in 2020.

The Tenure-Track Review Committee released its final report in October 2021, largely upholding the school’s tenure review process while acknowledging “mistrust and low morale” among junior faculty. The committee suggested several adjustments to clarify the process and called for further review of the University’s use of secretive ad hoc committees.

In March, Gay sent faculty an implementation plan for the recommendations outlined in the report. The plan features measures to increase faculty participation and improve communication between deans, candidates, and the review committees.

Since 2021, García Peña has served as a professor of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University. Beginning July 1, she will move to Princeton’s Effron Center for the Study of America and the school’s Department of African American Studies.

Hired by Harvard in 2013, García Peña was the only Black Latina among the FAS’ tenure track faculty at the time. She helped create a secondary field in Latinx studies and collected numerous teaching awards.

In the weeks that followed her tenure denial, hundreds of students and ethnic studies scholars condemned the decision by staging a sit-in at University Hall, protesting in Harvard Yard, and writing letters to administrators. Protestors claimed the tenure denial contradicted the University’s efforts to promote ethnic studies at Harvard.

Jane Sujen Bock ’81 — a member of the Ethnic Studies Task Force of the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard, an alumni group aiming to increase diversity at the University — highlighted García Peña’s scholarship, contributions to the field of ethnic studies, and passion for teaching in an email following news of García Peña’s appointment.

“Harvard’s failings are Princeton’s gain,” Bock wrote.

—Staff writer Ariel H. Kim can be reached at ariel.kim@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @ArielH_Kim.

—Staff writer Claire Yuan can be reached at claire.yuan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @claireyuan33.