Latest news with #FrancescaGino
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Harvard professor fired for allegedly fabricating research earned $1M
Disgraced Harvard professor Francesca Gino was paid more than $1 million a year at the height of her career, it was revealed, even as she allegedly manipulated data in research papers about honesty. Gino, a former Harvard Business School professor, once hailed as a rising star in behavioral science, was the fifth-highest paid employee at Harvard in both 2018 and 2019, according to records obtained by The Harvard Crimson. Her once-celebrated career imploded after she was accused of falsifying data in a series of behavioral science studies - including papers on honesty itself. The university revoked Gino's tenure and terminated her employment, marking the first time in decades that such a step has been taken against a tenured faculty member. Her ouster came after a lengthy internal investigation found evidence of academic misconduct in research spanning more than a decade. The revelation fueled fresh outrage as the Ivy League institution reels from a rapidly escalating political showdown with the Trump administration, which has moved to cancel $100 million in federal contracts and slash billions more in grants. In a separate conflict, the Trump administration has moved to cancel roughly $100 million in federal contracts with Harvard and is threatening to divert another $3 billion in grants. Trump has accused the school of promoting antisemitism, resisting oversight, and harboring 'radicalized lunatics' among its foreign student population. Taken together, the Gino scandal and the funding fight have thrown the university into turmoil - exposing deep tensions over accountability, integrity, and power at one of America's most elite institutions. Gino's fall from grace began quietly in 2021, when anonymous researchers and the whistleblower blog Data Colada published explosive allegations that Gino had falsified data in several published studies - including one ironically focused on dishonesty. The blog's meticulous analysis and documentation sparked alarm throughout the academic world. 'In 2021, we and a team of anonymous researchers examined a number of studies co-authored by Gino, because we had concerns that they contained fraudulent data,' Data Colada wrote. 'We discovered evidence of fraud in papers spanning over a decade, including papers published quite recently (in 2020).' Harvard Business School responded with an 18-month internal investigation, eventually concluding that Gino had engaged in academic misconduct. By mid-2023, she was placed on unpaid administrative leave, stripped of her named professorship, and barred from campus. But what stunned even longtime faculty members was what came next with the formal revocation of her tenure, a punishment so rare that it had not occurred at Harvard since at least the 1940s. Gino has strenuously denied the allegations. In September 2023, she launched a $25 million lawsuit against Harvard, its business school dean Srikant Datar, and the Data Colada bloggers, Leif D. Nelson, Uri Simonsohn, and Joseph P. Simmons, accusing them of conspiracy, defamation, and violating her contractual rights. In a defiant post on her personal website Gino wrote: 'I did not commit academic fraud. I did not manipulate data to produce a particular result. I did not falsify data to bolster any result. I did not commit the offense I am accused of. Period.' Though a federal judge dismissed parts of her suit in September 2024, he allowed claims of contract violations and discrimination to move forward. Gino has since added Title VII claims to her case, accusing the university of targeting her unfairly with policies that were, she alleges, crafted specifically to punish her. 'It has been shattering to watch my career being decimated and my reputation completely destroyed,' she wrote in October. 'I am fighting not only for my name but for fairness in academia.' As Gino's saga unfolded, it collided with a much larger storm - a full-blown assault on Harvard by President Donald Trump, who returned to the White House in January 2025 and immediately began targeting the Ivy League school as 'a nest of left-wing extremism, antisemitism, and corruption.' Earlier this week, the Trump administration took aim at $100 million in federal contracts awarded to Harvard, instructing agencies to cancel all agreements and seek 'alternate vendors.' The move follows the administration's earlier decision to cancel more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants to the university. 'We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country,' Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday morning. 'Harvard is very slow in the presentation of these documents, and probably for good reason! The best thing Harvard has going for it is that they have shopped around and found the absolute best Judge (for them!) - But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!', he added. Although Harvard has complied with some requests from the Department of Homeland Security, the administration said the school's response was insufficient and attempted to revoke its ability to enroll foreign students - a move that was temporarily blocked in federal court after Harvard filed suit. International students are now caught in a kind of legal purgatory, unsure whether they'll be allowed to return in the fall. 'What the international students are caught in right now is just a limbo,' said Leo Gerdén, a graduating senior from Sweden. 'It's terrifying.' The Gino scandal has only fueled the administration's argument that Harvard is mismanaged, elitist, and ethically compromised. Harvard has long positioned itself as the gold standard in American higher education, a beacon of integrity and academic rigor. The simultaneous collapse of one of its star professors and the unraveling of its federal funding agreements has left the institution reeling. At a rally outside Harvard Yard this week, math and economics student Jacob Miller - former president of Harvard Hillel - condemned the administration's pressure campaign.
International Business Times
3 days ago
- International Business Times
Francesca Gino: Disgraced Harvard Professor Earned $1M Annually Before Being Fired for Fabricating Research Used in Studies on 'Dishonesty'
The disgraced ex-Harvard professor—fired from her cushy job for fabricating data in research centered on dishonesty—was once one of the highest-paid staff members at the Ivy League institution. Francesca Gino was paid a staggering $1 million annually as a behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School, according to the student-run Harvard Crimson. She was ranked as the university's fifth-highest-paid employee between 2018 and 2019. However, her career at the Ivy League institution came to an abrupt halt last week after school officials stripped her of tenure and fired her after an investigation concluded that she had manipulated data in four studies to make the findings boosted her proposed hypothesis. Lost the Top Job Once a celebrity academic, Gino became the first Harvard professor since the 1940s to have their tenure revoked, following the introduction of formal dismissal guidelines by the American Association of University Professors. Gino — the author of more than 140 academic papers and recipient of several prestigious awards — first came under investigation in 2023. Three behavioral scientists behind the blog Data Colada published a series of posts presenting evidence that four papers she co-authored between 2012 and 2020 included "fraudulent data." Scrutiny over her work began with a 2012 study she co-authored, which claimed that asking people to sign an honesty pledge at the beginning of a form, rather than at the end, led to more truthful answers. That particular study was retracted in 2021 due to apparent data manipulation by another researcher involved in the project, which was based on three separate lab experiments. Several years later, an internal review concluded that Gino had fabricated data to support her findings in at least four of her published studies. According to The Daily Beast, Harvard had not stripped a professor of their tenure in decades and offered no further comment on the matter. When the investigation began in 2023, Gino responded on her personal website, firmly rejecting the accusations made against her. "There is one thing I know for sure: I did not commit academic fraud. I did not manipulate data to produce a particular result," it reads. "I did not falsify data to bolster any result. I did not commit the offense I am accused of. Period." After allegation started to spread, Gino was placed on administrative leave. The journal Psychological Science also withdrew two of her published articles, saying that the decision was based on recommendations from the Research Integrity Office at Harvard Business School (HBS). In both instances, the journal noted that an independent forensic firm hired by HBS had found "discrepancies" between the final published data and earlier versions from Gino's behavioral research. Image Completely Tarnished Separately, Harvard requested the withdrawal of a third study published by Gino in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and according to the Financial Times, the journal's publisher planned to pull the article in its September 2023 edition. The two papers recently withdrawn by Psychological Science included a 2015 study titled "The Moral Virtue of Authenticity: How Inauthenticity Produces Feelings of Immorality and Impurity" and a 2014 study called "Evil Genius? How Dishonesty Can Lead to Greater Creativity." The 2020 paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which is now set to be retracted, was titled "Why Connect? Moral Consequences of Networking with a Promotion or Prevention Focus." The study "Evil Genius" included five separate lab experiments involving human participants, who were given chances to act dishonestly by exaggerating their performance on certain tasks, followed by assessments of their creativity. According to the original abstract, the research claimed that "acting dishonestly leads to greater creativity in subsequent tasks." In August 2023, Gino fired back at the university and filed a $25 million lawsuit, alleging she was the victim of a "smear campaign." The 100-page complaint, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, accused Harvard and the three data analysts of defaming her by spreading false accusations of academic misconduct. "I want to be very clear: I have never, ever falsified data or engaged in research misconduct of any kind," Gino said. In her lawsuit, Gino argued that any irregularities in the spreadsheets could have been caused by research assistants manually transferring data from paper forms—a method that is inherently susceptible to human mistakes. Gino's lawsuit further claimed that Harvard conducted an unjust and biased investigation into the data fraud accusations. She alleged that the university "overlooked evidence that could have cleared her" and introduced a new policy for handling academic misconduct cases that was enforced solely in her situation.
Hindustan Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Did Norway evacuate a student from Harvard ahead of commencement? What we know
Just ahead of Harvard's commencement on Thursday, a rumor spread on social media about Norway evacuating a student from the university due to 'safety concerns'. The claim went viral, but was soon debunked. This comes after an X user shared a screenshot of a Threads post making the allegation, calling it 'hauntingly symbolic'. 'Meanwhile at Harvard…Norway has evacuated a student from Harvard,' one person wrote on X, platform formerly known as Twitter. The X post had amassed more than 800,000 views as of this writing. Read More: Who is Francesca Gino? Harvard fires star professor with $1 million salary after data fraud allegations "Norway just evacuated a student from Harvard—not a war zone, but an American university. As someone who now resides in Sweden, I find it hauntingly symbolic. The "land of the free" was never truly free—just expertly packaged. When Nordic countries start extracting their citizens from Ivy League campuses for safety, it's not just a red flag. It's a siren," the post on Threads read. The rumor began with a May 23, 2025, report by Khrono, a Norwegian higher education news outlet, stating that the Aker Scholarship, a foundation sponsoring Norwegian students for advanced degrees abroad, had called one of its students from Harvard. The unidentified student, as per the report, arrived in Oslo on May 23, 2025. Bjørn Blindheim, CEO of Aker Scholarship, cited concerns over the student's visa status after DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced on May 22, 2025, that Harvard's SEVP certification was terminated. Read More: Harvard to urge judge to extend block on Trump's effort to bar foreign students The evacuation was a preemptive action by Aker Scholarship due to visa uncertainties, not safety threats. Blindheim told Khrono he called an emergency meeting on May 22, fearing the student could face detention or legal issues if Harvard's SEVP status wasn't restored. The DHS directive, announced without prior notice, advised international students to transfer or face visa revocation. Aker opted to fly the student back immediately, landing in Oslo on May 23, 2025. Blindheim expressed worry that the situation 'could get out of control,' referring to legal risks, not campus safety.
Hindustan Times
3 days ago
- Hindustan Times
Who is Francesca Gino? Harvard fires star professor with $1 million salary after data fraud allegations
Francesca Gino, a professor of business at Harvard, has been fired for allegedly manipulating data to support her hypothesis on honesty. The famed Ivy League revoked the 47-year-old's tenure in a rare move on Tuesday, nearly four years after she was first accused of data fraud, per Fox News. 'This is the first time it has occurred in recent decades,' a spokesperson for Harvard said of the professor's tenure being revoked in a statement to the outlet. A leading scholar of behavioural science, Gino published over 140 papers on human behaviour, honesty, and related areas. She earned global recognition for her work with Harvard University's Mind Brain Behavior initiative. Also Read: Photos show Alpine village almost completely destroyed by Swiss glacier collapse Before being fired, Gino was among the highest-paid educators, receiving more than $1 million in compensation in 2018 and 2019 at Harvard. But in 2021, her work came under scrutiny by scholars, who accused her of data fraud in a series of posts on the Data Colada website. 'We and a team of anonymous researchers examined a number of studies co-authored by Gino, because we had concerns that they contained fraudulent data,' a post published in 2023 reads. 'We discovered evidence of fraud in papers spanning over a decade, including papers published quite recently (in 2020).' Also Read: Swiss glacier collapses, destroys nearly all of Alpine village. Watch wild video She has since denied the allegations, filing a lawsuit against the blog writers and Harvard. Gino publicly declared her 'innocence' on her website, with a statement that reads, 'There is one thing I know for sure: I did not commit academic fraud. I did not manipulate data to produce a particular result. I did not falsify data to bolster any result. I did not commit the offense I am accused of. Period.'
Time of India
3 days ago
- Time of India
The jaw-dropping salary of the Harvard professor Francesca Gino fired for data manipulation
Francesca Gino , a former professor at Harvard Business School , was once among the university's most highly compensated employees—earning an eye-popping $1 million per year. Between 2018 and 2019, she was the fifth-highest-paid employee at Harvard, drawing a six-figure salary that placed her well above many academic peers. But Gino's high-profile career—and high salary—came crashing down when Harvard fired her following a damning investigation into alleged research misconduct. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Famous Celebrities With Unexpected Degrees Learn More Undo A Million-Dollar Scandal Gino, a behavioral scientist known for her work on ethics, dishonesty, and human behavior, was placed on unpaid leave and ultimately fired after Harvard concluded that she had manipulated data in at least four published studies between 2012 and 2020. The university also stripped her of tenure—making her the first Harvard professor to lose tenure since the 1940s. Live Events The controversy began in October 2021, when questions were raised about a study she co-authored. The research claimed that having people sign an honesty pledge at the beginning of a form, rather than at the end, significantly increased truthful responses. That study was retracted in 2021 after suspicions of data fabrication emerged. Soon after, the blog Data Colada, run by three behavioral scientists, published a series of posts alleging data fraud in four of Gino's co-authored papers. The claims triggered a full-scale investigation by Harvard throughout 2022 and 2023. No Margin for Error Investigators reviewed her raw data, emails, and research manuscripts and even brought in an outside forensic firm for further analysis. They concluded that Gino had intentionally altered data to ensure the findings supported her hypotheses. Her explanations—citing possible mistakes by research assistants or malicious tampering—were rejected by investigators. Despite Gino's public denial of the allegations—stating on her website, 'I did not commit academic fraud. I did not manipulate data to produce a particular result'—Harvard moved forward with termination proceedings. She later filed a $25 million defamation lawsuit against Harvard, HBS Dean Srikant Datar, and the Data Colada bloggers. But in September, a federal judge in Boston dismissed the claims, ruling that as a public figure, Gino's academic work was subject to public scrutiny under the First Amendment.
