Public support for the idea of intelligent design damaged an Iowa State University astronomer’s prospects for tenure long before his peers voted against his application, The Des Moines Register reported, citing e-mail messages it obtained.

The university denied tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, last spring, after a vote in November 2006 by his departmental colleagues. Officials stressed at the time that the decision was based on his scientific activity and publication record, which had trailed off after a promising start during his postdoctoral years at other institutions. But in the e-mail messages obtained by the newspaper, professors were expressing concerns at least a year before the departmental vote about Mr. Gonzalez’s advocacy of intelligent design, which holds that some form of intelligence helped shape the universe.

The Register quoted Iowa State officials as saying last week that Mr. Gonzalez’s high-profile support for intelligent design was discussed among his colleagues, but played only a secondary role in the tenure decision. In 2005, more than 120 faculty members at Iowa State signed a statement, started outside the department of physics and astronomy, that denounced intelligent design and urged professors not to portray the idea as science. —Charles Huckabee