CAMBRIDGE, Mass.

Dr. James L. Sherley is waging a hunger strike to protest the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s decision to deny him tenure after eight years as an associate professor of biological engineering. But Sherley, a rare Black scientist who researches human stem cells, says his ultimate cause is bigger than his own academic status.

“This cause is not about tenuring Sherley, it’s about ending racism at MIT,” he told Diverse on Wednesday, a week and a half after going on a hunger strike. Every weekday morning, he and other protestors huddle outside the office of provost L. Rafael Reif. 

Sherley, 49, maintains the decision to deny him tenure, made two years ago and upheld in three administrative reviews since then, was tinged by racial considerations and procedural irregularities. His teaching contract ends in June. 

MIT administrators have denied Sherley’s charges and noted that fewer than half of the college’s junior faculty members are offered tenure. Chancellor Phillip Clay, who is Black, has said that after consultations with outside experts in Sherley’s field “he didn’t come up to the standard we expect.” As chancellor, Clay is not MIT’s chief executive but oversees undergraduate and graduate education and student life and services.

 Last year, while his appeal was under review, Sherley was one of 13 scientists nationwide to receive a Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health. The institute began presenting the annual awards in 2004 to “innovative scientists with ideas that have the potential for high impact,” according to its Web site.

The federal agency says Sherley’s $2.5 million research grant will “enable a new era of cellular medicine by developing routine methods for the production of several types of human adult stem cells with clinical potential.” MIT had another award winner last year, Dr. Arup K. Chakraborty, who holds an endowed professorship of chemical engineering, chemistry and biological engineering.