Harvard Dishonesty Expert Accused of Dishonesty Files Defamation Lawsuit Against University, Critics

Back in June, we highlighted a story about a Harvard professor named Francesca Gino, who is supposedly an expert on dishonesty and was accused of dishonest academic practices.

The report came from the Financial Times:

Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonestyA high-profile expert on ethics and dishonesty is facing allegations of dishonesty in her own work and has taken administrative leave from Harvard Business School.Francesca Gino is one of HBS’s best-known behavioural scientists and author of Rebel Talent, a 2018 book with the subtitle “Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life”.The controversy, which centres on the use of allegedly fraudulent data in published papers, is the latest to hit the field of behavioural science and psychology research. Some well-publicised findings in the discipline have proved hard to replicate, casting a shadow over the highly modish branch of management studies and social science.Gino, whose work has been widely cited, including in the Financial Times, has been a professor of business administration at HBS since 2014. Her HBS profile was recently altered to indicate that she is on administrative leave. She did not respond to FT requests for comment via email and social media. A Harvard Business School spokesman said: “We have no comment at this time.”

Gino has now launched a lawsuit against Harvard and some of her critics.

The Boston Globe reports:

Harvard professor accused of research fraud files defamation lawsuit against university, academicsAfter being accused of research fraud, Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino filed a defamation and discrimination lawsuit Wednesday against Harvard University and three academics who detailed the fraud allegations in their blog.The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Boston, names Harvard Business School dean Srikant Datar as well as three authors of the Data Colada blog, who alleged in a four-part series that four academic articles Gino cowrote contained fraudulent data. The three named authors are professors Uri Simonsohn, of Esade Business School in Spain; Leif Nelson, at the University of California, Berkeley; and Joseph Simmons, at the University of Pennsylvania.Harvard Business School would not discuss the lawsuit Wednesday. The named defendants could not be immediately reached for comment.The Data Colada series, which followed an initial report by The Chronicle of Higher Education in June about Harvard’s investigation into a paper Gino coathored, quickly made national headlines and sent shock waves through academia. Two of the articles named in the Data Colada series have since been retracted, with a third set to be retracted next month.

Here’s an interesting observation:

You can read the full complaint here.

Featured image via YouTube.

Tags: College Insurrection, Harvard

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