Faculty denied tenure: internalization, resistance, and the organizational protection of legitimacy

The denial of tenure frequently results in devastating personal and professional consequences for the individual, but scant scholarship has taken on the question of how tenure denial functions systemically. In this qualitative study of American college and university faculty, we employ the concept of structural stigma to highlight how universities and their agents assign culpability to those denied tenure in an effort to mitigate organizational risk. Findings point to examples of internalization of responsibility as well as forms of resistance among participants denied tenure.