What is captivating here is that Berkowitz wrote the review just before he went up for tenure in the government department, one of whose voting members in Thompson. Berkowitz explained his actions in Nesson's class as follows. Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, suggested Berkowitz review the Thompson book after a prior Berkowitz review explored issues surrounding Alexis de Tocqueville, religion and civil society. Berkowitz had two (soundly politic) qualms--that Thompson is a colleague and that his own tenure review process was underway. After calling Martin H. Peretz, lecturer on Social Studies and owner of The New Republic, for advice, Berkowitz came to the conclusion that one, he had not even spoken with Thompson during his six years in the same department and that this review might start a conversation, and two, that even though this review "might worsen my prospects for tenure at Harvard, if it was done well it might attract employers outside Harvard."

Thus the published critique of Thompson that brought to light the partisan academica divide between the two men. And though Berkowitz knew of the potential intra-Harvard political consequences of his book review, he is now upset that his initial, negative predication might have come true. As evidence, he displayed-to the Nesson class a hand-written note from Thompson dated April 21, 1997, the same day he found out about the tenure denial, which read in part, "I have just learned that you were denied tenure...I was not able to support your candidacy...I hope to keep in touch."

For his part, Thompson says, "I am in a difficult position because I cannot speak about the substance of the case because of the general departmental policy that tenure deliberations are confidential. But I will say this: my actions in this case were limited to the usual role I play as a member of the government department as a part of the departmental discussion. I wrote a customary letter to the Dean [of FAS Knowles]. I don't normally [as a part-time University administrator] have any other role in FAS tenure decisions and I did not do anything other in this case either." In response to the statement by Nesson that Thompson "formally declared himself not to be a witness in the process," Thompson remarks, "I wasn't a witness because I wasn't there [he was giving a speech at Rice University in Texas at the time]. It wasn't because I didn't want to be a witness."

This forthrightness on Thompson's part, saying that he did not in fact recuse himself from the process of testifying before the President--even under the allegation of a readily-apparent conflict of interest--seems to undermine the claim of the Berkowitz camp that Thompson secretly intervened at the top levels of the administration to bias the ad hoc committee against Berkowitz. Thompson has made clear his professional disapproval of Berkowitz (through his negative department vote and this comment), and therefore had no need to subvert the process in order to affect the Berkowitz tenure decision. We will never know what sort of communication Thompson might or might not have had with the President. Yet it is possible that Thompson, as well as other members of the government department, simply disparaged the Berkowitz candidacy in procedurally-required secret letters to the President.

In any case, the issue at hand is greater than the academic parlor game of "Who killed J.R?" For the Berkowitz camp, the question is whether there is a legal cause of action through which the professor can attain a new tenure hearing and/or financial damages for irreparable harm. For the Joint Committee on Appointments, the question is whether due process was violated so that the supposed sanctity and neutrality of the tenure process which former Dean of FAS Henry Rosovsky heralds in The University, is maintained. For the University community as a whole, the question is whether this method of ad hoc review committees and secretive letters is the best way to determine if a candidate is fit for tenure. Berkowitz and his lawyers will most likely have to proceed with the circumstantial evidence that they have shared with the public in Nesson's forum and over the Internet. The Joint Committee, which has tremendous power and access, truly has the opportunity to look seriously into possible procedural wrongdoing in this case.

And, regardless of the outcome of those two deliberations, the University community can begin to ask the substantive, moral questions that a deliberative democracy, as Thompson and Gutmann argue, should. We should wonder whether public hearings might not better suit a tenure debate than backroom politicking. Though the case is far from resolved, and we don't know whether there was a liberal-conservative deal at the departmental level, and we don't know whether there was behind-the-scenes manipulation of the ad hoc committee or the President, and we don't know whether Berkowitz was himself critiqued in the secret letters to the President--fairly or unfairly, as a Straussian, or simply as a theorist--we do know that last spring's tenure denials were just one more season in the life of academic politics.