BOSTON (AP) – A black MIT professor began a hunger strike Monday to protest the university’s decision to deny him tenure – a decision he claims was based on racism.

James Sherley, 49, a stem cell scientist, said he has tried unsuccessfully for two years to persuade administrators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to reverse a decision by his department head to reject his bid for tenure.

In December, Sherley gave MIT officials a deadline of Feb. 5 to reverse the decision. If not, he said he would start a hunger strike outside the office of MIT provost L. Rafael Reif.

Sherley stuck to his word. After eating two bowls of Chex cereal for breakfast, he stood outside Reif’s office for several hours Monday morning in a peaceful protest, accompanied by about 25 friends and supporters.

Sherley, who is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 254 pounds, said he planned to go without food and ingest only water, vitamins and electrolyte supplements until the university acknowledges racism played a role in the decision to deny him tenure. He said he would spend three hours each morning outside Reif’s office, then continue his research work in his lab at MIT in the afternoons.

“Right now I have no plans on stopping until something significant changes,” Sherley said Monday.

“I’m not actually doing this to get tenured. I’m doing this for the reason that I wasn’t tenured – which is racism – and I want this institution to admit that that is the problem and make plans to do something about it.”

MIT administrators denied Sherley’s allegations and said less than half of MIT’s junior faculty members are promoted to tenured positions.

MIT Chancellor Phillip Clay would not comment on the specific reasons Sherley was not advanced on the tenure track. But he said administrators – as part of the tenure process – sought input from experts outside of MIT in Sherley’s field.

“He didn’t come up to the standard we expect based on those inputs from the outside,” Clay said.

Sherley, however, said his department chairman told him his external letters were fine.

“This is gamesmanship on the part of the university,” Sherley said. “Some of the external letter writers have sent me their letters because they were shocked and surprised that I had not received tenure.”

Clay said since the original decision to deny tenure, Sherley’s case has been examined three separate times, including by a committee of senior faculty members from different MIT departments who reviewed the allegations made by Sherley. They found no evidence of racial discrimination.

“We’re satisfied that race was not a factor in the denial of his tenure case,” Clay said. “This was a specific question by the panel that conducted a review – was racism a factor? – and they said it was not.”

Sherley is known for his controversial theories about stem cells. He works with adult stem cells and opposes research using human embryonic stem cells because he believes it amounts to taking human life.

In September, he won a prestigious Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health. The $2.5 million grant is for scientists taking innovative approaches to biomedical problems.

AP-ES-02-05-07 1645EST