In an e-mail to the rest of the committee last winter, Johnson cited what he called “grave problems” with one of the two women on that short list. He called her teaching evaluations unsatisfactory and her scholarship inadequate.

“I expressed the opinion that we should hire based on scholarship and ability,” Johnson said. “In my opinion one of the candidates was not qualified.”

Gallagher responded in an e-mail to the committee about a week later, saying that Johnson’s opinions were “preposterous, specious, and demeaning.”

According to Fichtner, who was not directly involved in the search, the department had an “unofficial agenda” to hire a woman for the position.

Johnson said he believes that when he went against this agenda, he incurred Gallagher’s displeasure.

“Over the next several weeks the chairman began to build a case against my promotion,” Johnson said.

The tension between Johnson and Gallagher over the search soon resulted in a more serious showdown.

On January 25—three weeks after their e-mail exchange and one day before the start of the spring term—Gallagher told seven students who had enrolled in Johnson’s course on the CIA that they couldn’t take it because they had not completed the prerequisite class. He also removed eight students from Johnson’s independent study courses.

Gallagher then wrote a memo saying Johnson was flouting department policy by admitting unqualified students into his CIA colloquium, as well as his independent studies.

Johnson fought back with a memo of his own, citing statistics that show the department had “overlooked rules about prerequisites for the last several years—without comment.”

Weininger, the leader of the pro-Johnson student group, was one of the students removed from the CIA course. When he met with the history chair in protest, he recalled Gallagher saying “Johnson is trouble and those who associate with him will find themselves in trouble as well.”

Things came to a head when Johnson applied for tenure last spring. Given his length of service at Brooklyn, CUNY rules dictated that he could not be reappointed as an associate professor. He would have to be made a tenured member of the faculty or let go.

And since tenure decisions at CUNY are made through a panel of department heads at each college, Gallagher’s opposition would have been enough to defeat his bid for a full professorship.

According to Johnson, when Gallagher surveyed the history faculty for opinions on his case, the chair only talked with professors who had disagreed with him in the past.

Johnson said he believes these members of the department accused him of speaking arrogantly and dismissively about their work—accusations that Johnson says stem from the panel and search controversies.