Former Harvard Business School Prof Loses His Tenure Fight

A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has dismissed former Harvard Business School professor Benjamin Edelman’s lawsuit against Harvard University, ending a three-year legal battle that put one of the world’s most powerful business schools on trial over how it grants — and denies — tenure.

In a 38-page ruling Tuesday, Justice Kenneth W. Salinger granted Harvard’s motion for summary judgment and rejected Edelman’s cross-motion, concluding that Harvard did not breach any contractual obligation when it denied Edelman tenure in 2018.

“Edelman had no contractual right to receive tenure,” Salinger wrote — a blunt affirmation of the wide latitude courts traditionally give universities in academic promotion decisions.

The ruling effectively shuts down Edelman’s argument that Harvard failed to follow its own Faculty Review Board (FRB) procedures when reviewing his conduct and fitness for tenure.

A CASE THAT TESTED THE LIMITS OF FACULTY PROTECTIONS

Edelman, a Harvard College graduate and associate professor at HBS, first went up for tenure in 2015. By then, concerns had surfaced about whether he met the school’s “Community Values” standards — a factor that increasingly carries weight in elite business schools where collegiality, institutional reputation, and donor relationships matter.

Two episodes loomed large.

In 2014, Edelman published a blog post accusing UK-based BlinkX of deceptive practices based on research funded by short-selling firms. BlinkX’s stock price fell sharply afterward. Later that year, emails Edelman sent to a Brookline restaurant demanding a refund over a $4 overcharge went viral — an episode that critics argued reflected poor judgment and temperament.

Then-Dean Nitin Nohria convened the Faculty Review Board. The FRB concluded Edelman “did not uphold the School’s Community Values” and noted what it described as a pattern of apology followed by renewed defense of his actions. Instead of terminating him, the school extended his appointment two years to allow him to demonstrate growth.

When the board reconvened in 2017, it found Edelman “had not shown he had learned from the prior incidents.” It cited his filing of a class-action lawsuit against American Airlines without alerting the dean and raised concerns over disclosure issues involving nearly $2 million in payments from Microsoft while he published work critical of Google, a Microsoft competitor.

The faculty vote was hardly decisive. The Standing Committee split evenly. The full Appointments Committee voted 57% in favor and 40% against tenure. Ultimately, Nohria declined to recommend him, concluding Edelman had not satisfied HBS’s collegiality standards.

THE LAWSUIT: WAS POLICY A BINDING PROMISE?

Edelman filed suit in 2023, arguing that Harvard had violated its own FRB Procedures and that those procedures constituted a binding contract. He alleged six procedural failures and claimed the tenure process violated standards of fairness and good faith.

Salinger was unpersuaded.

The judge characterized Edelman’s reading of the FRB procedures as “strained, persnickety, and incorrect.” He found no evidence Harvard had contractually committed to follow those procedures “in full” in tenure decisions. He also emphasized that HBS’s governing tenure document — known as the “Green Book” — explicitly reserves the dean’s discretion to approve procedural variances.

Even more damaging to Edelman’s claim: in 2015, when the FRB reviewed his case using the same procedures he later challenged, he did not object.

Absent a “clear contractual commitment,” Salinger wrote, universities retain “broad discretion” in deciding who receives tenure.

A PRECEDENT WITH IMPLICATIONS BEYOND HARVARD

In a statement to The Harvard Crimson, Edelman said he was “disappointed in the decision” and warned that it sets a troubling 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.”

Harvard and HBS declined to comment.

For business schools, however, the ruling reinforces a long-standing reality: tenure decisions remain largely insulated from judicial second-guessing. Courts tend to avoid substituting their judgment for that of academic institutions, particularly in subjective matters like collegiality, institutional fit, and professional conduct.

That discretion matters. At elite schools like Harvard, tenure is not simply a referendum on research output. It is a holistic judgment that increasingly weighs classroom impact, reputation risk, external relationships, and adherence to community norms.

In that sense, the Edelman case was less about one professor’s dossier than about who ultimately controls the gatekeeping process at the highest levels of academia.

The answer, at least in Massachusetts Superior Court, is clear: the dean does.

And the courts are not eager to step in.

DON’T MISS: ‘Abrasive, Arrogant, Unreasonable’: The Quotes That Sank Ben Edelman’s Tenure Case At Harvard Business School or Why Harvard Business School Denied Tenure—Even When the Academic Case Was Strong

© Copyright 2026 Poets & Quants. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Poets & Quants, please submit your request HERE.