Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—1st Cir.: Dartmouth professor, denied tenure, failed to show religious, national origin discrimination, (Jul 14, 2026)

By Jason Albright, J.D.

The professor, who is Muslim and Arab-Egyptian, was discouraged by a dean from serving as an advisor to a Muslim student group until he attained tenure.

A Muslim and Arab-Egyptian professor, employed for six years by Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering but ultimately denied tenure, failed to establish religious and national origin discrimination, or retaliation based on research misconduct proceedings Dartmouth initiated against him, the First Circuit found. Dartmouth articulated a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for denying him tenure, and he failed to show pretext based on alleged disparate treatment, Dartmouth's purported violations of its tenure policy, and an allegedly unfriendly work environment. There was also no evidence permitting the conclusion that Dartmouth's investigation of a graduate student’s independent complaint against him, which was carried out on a separate track by individuals who were not involved in the tenure dispute, was undertaken to retaliate against him (Farid v. Trustees of Dartmouth College, No. 25-1734 (1st Cir. July 13, 2026)).

Associate professor. In 2015, according to the court, the plaintiff, who is Muslim and Arab-Egyptian, joined the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College as an associate professor. He expected that, as such, he would become eligible for tenure after just three years of teaching. Nonetheless, he agreed in his offer letter to become eligible for tenure after six years.

Muslim student group. Shortly after he joined the Dartmouth faculty, a Muslim student group invited him to serve as a professor-advisor, but the Dean at the time discouraged him from doing so until he attained tenure. According to the plaintiff, however, a non-Muslim professor was encouraged to help with the Dartmouth rowing team, even though he had not yet attained tenure.

Energy system project. In September 2019, he began advising a group of students on a project studying the campus energy system. Just one month later, he received an email from another professor involved with the project informing him that the Dean "did not think [] highly of... the students' work" and asking him to "step away from the team."

Full six years. In 2018, the Dean advised the plaintiff that he would need to use "the full six years of [his] tenure clock" to improve his negative "teaching evaluation scores" in multiple classes. The professor also received two one-year postponements for tenure review, such that he could have deferred his application until the 2022—23 academic year.

Danger. During the summer of 2020, however, he met with the new Dean and an associate Dean to "get a clear indication" of "when it [wa]s appropriate to go up for tenure" and "whether [he] still remain[ed] in danger of termination through a failed tenure review." The two encouraged him to apply for tenure that year, but they did not sufficiently warn him that he could be placed on a terminal appointment if he was denied tenure. He then submitted his application for tenure in the 2020—21 academic year, unaware that an unsuccessful submission could foreclose his ability to reapply for tenure later.

Record at time. At the time of his tenure application, he had published a total of 45 refereed journal articles, which included 22 refereed journal articles since joining Dartmouth in 2015. Notably, however, his publications cited his own work at an unusually high rate. And though he also received approximately $1.9 million in research funding, $1.2 million of it was not competitively awarded through any merit-based selection process. Nor did he disclose that the largest grant listed on his CV, from the National Science Foundation (NSF), had an "EDGAR" designation, which signified that it was not a "peer reviewed" award. Finally, he taught three courses from 2016 to 2021, for which he received below-average course evaluations and negative comments from numerous students.

Faculty handbook. Dartmouth's faculty handbook sets forth "expectations of performance" for a candidate applying for tenure, including that the applicant demonstrate "an outstanding record both as a scholar and a teacher." Review of a candidate's scholarship includes, among other criteria, the "qualit[y]" of work and "contributions to the larger scholarly... communities" -- which are viewed as "more consequential than the quantity of work" -- and places "significant weight" on both the views of "Dartmouth colleagues" and "the judgment of professionals outside [Dartmouth]." Review of a candidate's teaching requires "[c]omparative judgment by current and former students and by faculty colleagues" and consideration of the applicant's "classroom instruction," "[w]ork with individual... students," and "course and program development."

Tenure denied. The tenured faculty at the Thayer School of Engineering met regarding his application on April 7, 2021. The faculty voted by secret ballot, with 18 members voting against granting him tenure, three members voting for tenure, and three members abstaining. The Dean then submitted a letter to the Committee Advisory to the President (CAP) that recommended "reinitiat[ing] the tenure review process during the 2022—23 academic year." The CAP declined to do so, denying him tenure and offering him a terminal appointment for the 2021—22 school year.

Alleged comparator. The year before, Dartmouth had awarded tenure to an assistant professor in transportation engineering who "is of Indian national origin and non-Muslim." He "routinely" received student course evaluations "in the very good to excellent range," which "ma[d]e him among the most highly regarded teachers at Thayer." He had published 16 journal articles, three book chapters, and three conference publications at Dartmouth before applying for tenure. He also had eight active extramural grants from a diverse stream of sources, including a $1 million Department of Defense award and the highly competitive NSF CAREER award, which totaled over $1.7 million. Finally, his identified reviewers, including those who had previously collaborated with him and those who had not, provided universally positive feedback.

Appeals denied. The plaintiff appealed his tenure denial to an internal Dartmouth review committee and separately to Dartmouth's Office of Institutional Diversity & Equity (IDE), in both cases to no avail as to the issues of promotion or discrimination in the tenure decision.

Research misconduct proceedings. Meanwhile, the professor was involved in a dispute with one of his graduate students with whom he had initially collaborated on a paper and failed to list as an author. On January 7, 2022, the grad student reported to an associate Dean his concerns about being excluded as an author on the paper and inquired regarding the "processes available to him to resolve" the issue. The student then submitted a research misconduct complaint to the Dean. A research misconduct investigation ensued, but the professor declined the lead investigator’s invitation to interview with the investigation committee, claiming his "medical condition" barred him from participating, and instead requested that the interview "be conducted via written questions." The committee declined because a written exchange would deprive it of the ability to interact with the professor in real time, pose timely follow-up questions, and assess his credibility.

Ultimately, a final report of the investigation concluded that the professor’s denial of authorship credit or acknowledgment to the student was "reprehensible" and a "breach of professional ethics,” and it recommended that Dartmouth not consider the professor “for any Dartmouth faculty appointment."

Lawsuit and decision below. After filing and later withdrawing charges with the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights, the professor sued Dartmouth in federal district court. He raised claims of discrimination based on religion and/or national origin in violation of Title VII and New Hampshire Revised Statute Section 354-A:7, as well as retaliation in violation of Title VII and New Hampshire Revised Statute Section 354-A:19. The district court granted Dartmouth's motion for summary judgment on all claims, and he timely appealed to the First Circuit.

Discrimination and disparate treatment. Affirming, the federal appeals court rejected the professor’s arguments that the reasons for Dartmouth’s tenure denial decision were pretextual. He first argued that Dartmouth’s award of tenure to the alleged comparator was evidence of disparate treatment, but the court was unpersuaded. Although the transportation engineering professor worked for the same department and applied for tenure in successive years to the same tenure committee and through the same tenure process as the plaintiff did, he differed from him in a key respect: his qualifications. Dartmouth's faculty handbook expressly requires that a candidate applying for tenure demonstrate "an outstanding record both as a scholar and a teacher," and in short, according to the court, the transportation engineering professor outperformed the plaintiff in each category.

Policy violations? The professor also pointed to circumstantial evidence that he claimed showed discriminatory intent, including that Dartmouth purportedly violated or inconsistently applied several of its policies to his detriment. Chiefly, he asserted that Dartmouth violated its tenure policies by failing to advise him that a negative vote on tenure could result in a terminal year appointment, but the court was unpersuaded, finding that Dartmouth did not disadvantage him individually in this respect. Rather, the failure in communication had applied to all tenure applicants.

Unfriendly work environment? Next, the professor relied upon purported evidence of an "unfriendly work environment," but the court was again unpersuaded. He claimed that Dartmouth discouraged him from participating as a faculty advisor for the Muslim student group while allowing non-Muslim faculty to participate in extra-curricular activities during tenure-track years; prevented him from obtaining campus wide energy systems data for his research; and removed him as an advisor to a student project relating to that data. Here, however, the appeals court found that he failed to connect these actions to discrimination based on his religion or national origin. And to the contrary, his testimony confirmed that his own poor performance motivated Dartmouth's actions. Specifically, one Dean advised him against joining the Muslim student group so that he could focus on improving his tenure case; and a second Dean directed that the professor be removed from the student project and precluded from accessing Dartmouth energy system data due to dissatisfaction with the work of the students whom the professor was advising. The professor identified no evidence rebutting these explanations.

Retaliation. Finally, the court rejected the professor’s argument that the record contained sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Dartmouth retaliated against him for bringing his discrimination claims. He argued that the circumstances as a whole, including Dartmouth's purported violations of policy and evidence of antagonism, showed pretext and demonstrated that Dartmouth had a retaliatory animus when investigating the graduate student’s complaint against him. Here, though, the First Circuit noted that the investigation of the student’s complaint “was carried out on a separate track, by individuals who were not involved in the tenure dispute.” Nor did the record support the professor’s claim that the investigation committee expanded its inquiry to cover issues unrelated to research misconduct.

The judgment of the district court was accordingly affirmed.

The case is No. 25-1734.

Judge: Dunlap, J.

Attorneys: Joseph L. Sulman (Law Office of Joseph L. Sulman) for Amro Farid. Pierre A. Chabot (Devine, Millimet & Branch) for Trustees of Dartmouth College.

Companies: Dartmouth College

Cases: Discrimination ReligiousDiscrimination NationalOrigin Retaliation MaineNews MassachusettsNews NewHampshireNews PuertoRicoNews RhodeIslandNews