system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Tenure fail?

What would the circumstances be if someone were to have their tenure denied at the very last moment? Going into the meeting with the committee where you expect to get tenure only to have the committee say, “I’m sorry, we found out that…” and they are denied? Faked data? Affair with student? Things like that?
gpt
If tenure is denied at the *very* last moment (if you're accurate in this description) then it is almost certainly the Chancellor or the Trustees (for whatever reasons, but usually political.) 

Tenure cases fail at the Department level for personal (she's a jerk) and professional (he just can't teach/just didn't get the work done) reasons.  But this is *not* "the very last moment."  It's the beginning.  

Every time it goes up the line (Dean's committee, Dean, Provost's committee, Provost, Chancellor, Trustees) a case has more 'momentum' for having passed the previous stage. 

So the cases that *fail* at the top (i.e. the last minute) are cases where the top is overruling every committee & authority below them.  Very unusual, and usually because the research is "politically controversial" or because the Chancellor/Trustees have some sort of bug up their butt (i.e. they insist on "only field-changing scholars get tenure" or something.)

Cases that *succeed* at the top (where they've failed in previous stages but the failure gets kicked up for confirmation) usually "succeed" in order to avoid a lawsuit (i.e. gender/racial discrimination, irregularities at the department level, something like that)