Associate professor of economics Qintao Fan is suing the University of Oregon for $6 million, alleging that the then-dean of the Lundquist College of Business discounted her publication materials and positive external review letters when considering her for a tenure promotion. The suit was filed on Jan. 27.
In 2016, Fan was hired within the Lundquist College of Business in a tenure-track position. Fan obtained a Ph.D. from Stanford University and has held positions at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with several academic publications in journals.
The tenure process at UO has several levels of review: The department, in this case the LCB, prepares the file and seeks out external reviews, and once external reviews are submitted, the department conducts a review through a personnel committee report and then votes on the award of tenure…