The (Seemingly) Endless Story - Part 4

The story of Harvard and Prof. Francesca Gino continues. As blog readers will know, Prof. Gino was an expert in research on dishonesty who was accused of manipulating data, i.e., dishonesty. We last revisited this story last October.*

From Poets and Quants via Yahoo News: For what many believe is the first time in its long history, Harvard University has stripped a one-time superstar professor at Harvard Business School of tenure. The decision, announced in a closed-door meeting with business faculty this past week, officially puts to an end [Francesca] Gino’s lifetime employment protections at HBS. Tenure revocation represents the most severe discipline a university can impose. For Gino, the university decision is a potentially career ending decision unless she can provide evidence that the data at issue was not intentionally falsified. Even if she is able to accomplish her innocence in her $25 million lawsuit against Harvard, this is a huge hit to her career and reputation.

It has been nearly two years since Harvard’s Office of the President notified Gino on July 28 of 2023 that it had begun the process of reviewing her tenure over allegations of research misconduct. The tenure review was initiated by HBS Dean Srikant Datar who by then had put Gino on an unpaid administrative leave, banned her from campus, revoked her named professorship, and prevented the professor from publishing on Harvard Business School platforms. Gino’s loss of tenure represents the first time Harvard University has forcibly stripped a tenured faculty member’s position since the 1940s, when the American Association of University Professors formalized tenure rules. Tenured faculty have long been considered invincible. More often than not, professors who are under pressure from a university administration voluntarily surrender their tenure or simply retire...

Neither the university nor the business school made a public announcement of the move. It was first disclosed by GBH News and confirmed by a university spokesperson. Gino, who has vehemently denied that she did anything wrong, has not commented publicly on the decision. Previously, Gino has asserted that she has never “falsified data or engaged in research misconduct of any kind.” Her last LinkedIn post two weeks ago was a promotion of sorts for her book, Rebel Talent. A website, Francesca v Harvard, devoted to her lawsuit has not been recently updated...

Full story at https://www.yahoo.com/news/harvard-strips-tenure-hbs-superstar-131336945.html.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-seemingly-endless-story-part-3.html. For earlier posts, type "Gino" into the search option for this blog.