Reasons for denial
The University has issued a FAQ concerning the situation saying that "The consensus of the tenured department faculty, the department chair, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the executive vice president and provost was that tenure should not be granted. Based on recommendations against granting tenure and promotion at every prior level of review, and his own review of the record, President Gregory Geoffroy notified Gonzalez in April that he would not be granted tenure and promotion to associate professor."[14] The denial of tenure for Gonzalez resulted in one of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns with the Institute encouraging its followers to call and email Geoffroy and urge him to reverse the decision.[15][16]

The Chronicle of Higher Education said of Gonzalez and the Discovery Institute's claims of discrimination "At first glance, it seems like a clear-cut case of discrimination ... But a closer look at Mr. Gonzalez's case raises some questions about his recent scholarship and whether he has lived up to his early promise." The Chronicle observed that Gonzalez had no major grants during his seven years at ISU, had published no significant research during that time and had only one graduate student finish a dissertation.[17] The Discovery Institute misrepresents an op-ed by John Hauptman, one of Gonzalez's colleagues in the physics department. Hauptman states clearly that Gonzalez's work falls far short of what scientists know to be science, containing not one single number, not one single measurement or test of any kind. [18][19] "I believe that I fully met the requirements for tenure at ISU," said Gonzalez,[20] to which intelligent design critic PZ Myers replied "Complaining that one met all the requirements is like proposing marriage, getting turned down, and then protesting that one has a good job, a nice apartment, and excellent personal hygiene. That may be true, but it's irrelevant."[21] On May 8, Gonzalez appealed the decision.[22]

Gonzalez's failure to obtain research funding has been cited as a factor in the decision. "Essentially, he had no research funding," said Eli Rosenberg, chairman of Gonzalez's department. "That's one of the issues."[23] According to the Des Moines Register, "Iowa State has sponsored $22,661 in outside grant money for Gonzalez since July 2001, records show. In that same time period, Gonzalez's peers in physics and astronomy secured an average of $1.3 million by the time they were granted tenure."On February 7th, 2008, his appeal to the Board of Regents was denied.[24]




Role of the Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute launched a campaign portraying Gonzalez as a victim of discrimination by "Darwinist ideologues" for his support of intelligent design, [25][20] comparing Gonzalez's denial of tenure to the claims of discrimination by Richard Sternberg, another institute affiliate, over the Sternberg peer review controversy.[26] The institute's public relations campaign also makes the same claims of discrimination as the campaign it conducted on behalf of institute Fellow Francis J. Beckwith when he was initially denied tenure at Baylor University.

The Discovery Institute filed a request for public records and as a result, in December of 2007, Des Moines Register obtained faculty email records from 2005 that included discussions of intelligent design, and made mention of the impact that Gonzalez's support for it might have on his prospects for tenure. Emails included one by John Hauptman who worried that the anti-Gonzalez sentiments were "starting to smack of a witch's hanging." Hauptman went on to vote against Gonzalez's tenure in part over concerns about Gonzalez's support of intelligent design. [27][19] The Discovery Institute writes that the email records "demonstrate that a campaign was organized and conducted against Gonzalez by his colleagues, with the intent to deny him tenure". [28] In a letter to the Iowa State Daily, Physics and Astronomy Professor Joerg Schmalian stated that the e-mail "discussion was prompted by our unease with the national debate on intelligent design", not the issue of tenure.[29]

Critics such as PZ Myers have argued that the Discovery Institute's statement "relies heavily on fragmentary quotes taken from emails that they obtained through an open records inquiry", that the "entire anti-evolution movement" has a track-record of taking quotations out of context, that "the DI has not made the full text of the sources available for examination", leading to a "reluctan[ce] to accept the quotes provided at face value", and that in any case "[t]his is precisely what his colleagues are supposed to do: discuss concerns about his tenure case."[30][31] Another critic has analysed the list of Gonzalez's publications supplied by the Discovery Institute, and found that "he peaked in 1999, and the decline [in his publications] began even while he was still at the University of Washington" and that "[e]ven more pronounced than the drop in publications is the complete bottom-out in first authorships that is almost sustained throughout his entire probationary period leading up to tenure."[32] Another critic commented:

“ How can Gonzalez complain if his work on ID was considered? If intelligent design is scientific, his department is entitled judge his work in that field. If ID is not science, it’s fair to question why their faculty member is spending so much of his time and resources on it. The claims of persecution issuing from the Discovery Institute and Dr. Gonzalez require that intelligent design be both science and religion. This isn’t about science, it’s about politics.

Did Dr Abraham win his lawsuit? Could you provide a paper written by Dr. Abraham that provides evidence supporting instant creation of the zebrafish species and thus refutes some parts of evolution?

The overwhelming majority of biologists, geologists and physicists conclude that the evidence supports an old earth (4.6 billion years) and evolution from a common ancestor to the diversity of life that we have today.

If you were a geographer getting ready to hire an assistant, would you hire the assistant that concluded the world was flat or the one that concluded the world was a oblate spheroid? Could the flat earther claim religious discrimination if his religious book said the world was flat?