Should Tenure Candidates Whitelist or Blocklist External Reviewers?

I was recently asked by a pre-tenure IP colleague if they should enumerate any external reviewers on a whitelist or blocklist of reviewers when they apply for tenure. There is no single answer to this question across all academia. The answer surely varies by academic discipline, and maybe there are geographic differences. Even within the law professor community, I suspect the answer varies among subdisciplines. As a result, I’ll answer the question with respect to the IP community because that it’s the one I know best. I might feel differently if I knew other fields better.

With respect to whitelisting or blocklisting external tenure reviewers in the IP community, my view is that many IP candidates will choose not to enumerate anyone on either list. Overall, in my experience, IP professors write fair reviews, and tenure committees generally try not to stack the deck against candidates. I know it can be scary to trust the process given the unknowns, but if the candidate generally thinks the committee will try hard to present them fairly, I would let the committee assemble the list of external reviewers on its own.

Some edge cases where I might feel differently:

1) the candidate might blocklist reviewers they know are unfairly out to get them. This would be highly unusual in the IP community.

2) the candidate might whitelist reviewers who can best appreciate the candidate’s work but will be difficult or impossible for the committee to find independently. This could be true in highly niche communities where outsiders won’t know the key players.

3) the candidate doesn’t trust the committee to put together a fair reviewer list. In this situation, the candidate could try to correct the problem with whitelists and blocklists. However, they would also have bigger concerns about the tenure process.

A couple of reasons why I’m not a fan of whitelisting reviewers. There’s always a risk that the faculty will downplay a review from a whitelisted external review because they assume those suggested reviewers are their friends and therefore predisposed to say nice things, true or not. Also, if the review comes back negative, the whitelisting might reflect poorly on the candidate for misjudging their standing with the whitelisted reviewer. At minimum, I could see the faculty giving extra weight to any criticisms from nominated reviewers. As a result, it could be slightly disadvantageous to whitelist anyone the committee will likely find on its own.

I’m sure there are other views on this topic. Please add your comment or send me an email (let me know if I can post it).

Of possible interest: I wrote some guidance to external reviewers of tenure and promotion candidates.