Harvard Business School rejected tenure for professor Benjamin Edelman even after faculty committees and the former dean acknowledged his scholarly and teaching credentials, citing the school’s opaque “community standards.” The decision has prompted litigation; Edelman is suing HBS for breach of good faith and fair dealing and a Massachusetts court is weighing motions in the case. Former Dean Nitin Nohria testified that Edelman met intellectual and teaching thresholds but fell short on the third criterion. Depositions and internal documents introduced in the lawsuit are now public, intensifying scrutiny of how elite universities define and apply non-academic tenure criteria. The dispute raises governance questions about transparency in tenure processes, the boundaries of community-standard judgments, and the legal exposure universities face when internal reviews intersect with personnel law.