A Harvard professor known for researching honesty before being accused of extensive data fraud has been fired, the first time the Ivy League institution has dismissed a tenured instructor in about 80 years.
Francesca Gino was initially put on administrative leave by the Harvard Business School (HBS) in 2023 after multiple allegations of falsifying data related to her research, which focused on ethical behavior. On Tuesday, a university spokesperson confirmed that Gino’s tenure had been revoked, terminating her employment.
Academic tenure generally prevents university faculty members from being fired except in extreme circumstances. The Harvard Crimson student newspaper reported that no instructors at the school had lost their tenure since the 1940s, when the American Association of University Professors implemented rules governing firings.
Attempts to contact Gino for comment were not immediately successful, but she has previously maintained her innocence. Harvard did not elaborate, citing a policy against discussing personnel matters.
Gino’s dismissal is unrelated to the attacks and funding cuts that Donald Trump has inflicted on the university since taking office in January.
She first arrived at HBS, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2010 as an associate business administration professor, according to her résumé, which also said she became a full professor in 2014 and headed the Negotiations, Organizations and Markets Unit from 2018 to 2021.
Gino also presented her research at a number of conferences and spoke at various schools, and her work had been covered in media including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and NBC News.
In June 2023, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Harvard had informed another HBS professor, Max Bazerman, that it believed one of the studies overseen by Gino – with whom he had published a 2012 paper – had falsified results.
The paper in question involved findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which later retracted the work. The experiment asked participants to fill out tax and insurance paperwork, and found that those who were asked to sign declarations of truthfulness at the top of the page were more honest than those asked to sign declarations at the bottom of the page.
Bazerman said the university had supplied him with a 14-page document showing “compelling evidence” of data falsification, including the discovery that someone had accessed a database to add to the file and alter it. He denied having “anything to do with the fabrication”, according to the Chronicle.
A day later, the Data Colada blog – run by three behavioral science academics – published accusations that detailed what it said were extensive evidence of alleged fraud in four academic papers co-authored by Gino. They said none of her co-authors were involved, to the best of their knowledge, and that they shared their concerns about Gino with the HBS in the fall of 2021.
An internal investigation by Harvard subsequently found Gino had committed “research misconduct”. The university stripped her titled professorship and removed her from all teaching and research duties.
After she filed a $25m lawsuit against Harvard and Data Colada, a federal judge dismissed her claims that she had been defamed but allowed her to argue that the university had breached its contract by imposing discipline that violated its own tenure policies, the Crimson reported.
Gino has always denied fraud and wrote on a website dedicated to her lawsuit: “Once I have the opportunity to prove this in the court of law, with the support of experts I was denied through Harvard’s investigation process, you’ll see why their case is so weak and that these are bogus allegations.”
