“I will either see the provost resign and my hard-earned tenure granted at MIT, or I will die defiantly right outside his office,” Sherley wrote in a strongly worded letter. Sherley told the Boston Globe in January 2005 that fellow professors label him “stubborn” instead of “independent-minded"I suspect his tenure denial has little to do with either his race or his views on stem cell research, and a lot to do with his being a drama queen (and stubborn).