To the Editor:

The story "Brooklyn Scholar Gets New Shot at Tenure" (January 10) did not contain any response by Robert David Johnson to Brooklyn College's position. ...

Last year, Johnson was turned down for promotion (which would have conferred tenure) by what one long-term observer of the City University of New York has called "the most corrupted tenure-review process I have ever come across." Then the college's appointments committee voted to deny him reappointment -- a decision that was overturned by President Christoph M. Kimmich, to his credit.

Now Lisa Daglian, a spokeswoman for the college, crows that the college has taken "the winds out of Johnson's sails," and she invites him to submit his application for tenure and promotion to the same committees that have already participated in the "corrupted tenure-review process."

It is no wonder that CUNY sometimes has difficulty convincing its critics that it has escaped from what Johnson's defenders call the culture of mediocrity.

Margaret L. King
Professor of History
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn, N.Y.

Graduate Center
City University of New York
New York