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Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What to know as Harvard professor Francesca Gino has tenure revoked amid data fraud investigation
For the first time in roughly 80 years, Harvard University has revoked the tenure of one of its professors. Former Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino, widely known for researching honesty and ethical behavior, had her tenure revoked, a university spokesperson confirmed on Monday. Gino, 47, and her attorneys did not immediately return requests for comment. The former professor was placed on administrative leave in 2023 after multiple allegations of falsifying data surfaced. She has long maintained that she did not commit academic fraud. Harvard declined to provide additional details about her revocation, noting that it does not discuss personnel matters. The move does not appear to be related to the university's ongoing standoff with the Trump administration. For weeks, Harvard and the administration have been in legal battles over cuts to the university's federal funding and ability to enroll foreign students. However, the revocation represents an unprecedented penalty at Harvard, where no professor has lost their tenure since the 1940s, according to the student university paper The Harvard Crimson, during an exceptional time in the history of the nation's oldest university. Gino graduated with an economics degree from a small university in Italy, her home country, a copy of her resume says. She then earned her PhD in economics from the University of Pisa, before moving to the United States to work on a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard. "I was supposed to stay in the U.S. for about 6 to 9 months," she wrote in a 2023 post on LinkedIn. "But I truly loved my research and my work, so I never left." "I'll never forget how fortunate I was to have people at Harvard invest in me," she added. Gino then worked as a lecturer and researcher at Harvard Business School before becoming a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and later at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. According to her resume, she returned to Harvard as a professor at the university's business school in 2010, teaching graduate courses on decision-making and negotiation. Three years later, she published her first book, Sidetracked, on the science behind decision-making. In 2015, business school news site Poets&Quants named her a 'best 40 under 40 professor.' Gino published a second book in 2018, Rebel Talent, in which she argues that rule breakers and contrarians are the most successful in business and in life. Throughout her academic career, she has published more than 140 scholarly papers, many of which have been widely featured in the media, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and NBC News. Her research centered on behavioral economics, organizational behavior, decision making, negotiation and ethics, according to Harvard's website. The Harvard Crimson reported that in 2018 and 2019, Gino was the fifth highest paid employee at the university, receiving more than $1 million in compensation per year. Some of her most prominent studies have been centered on dishonesty. A team of behavioral professors and researchers affiliated with the blog site Data Coloda began examining several studies co-authored by Gino in 2021, "because we had concerns that they contained fraudulent data," the site said. The site alleged that the data in the study Gino co-authored had been fabricated, which the researchers denied. Later that year, the blog said it shared concerns about more than four of Gino's other papers with Harvard Business School. Gino was then placed on unpaid administrative leave in June 2023 after an 18-month review by the university concluded that Gino committed "research misconduct," according to a lawsuit Gino filed against Harvard and Data Colada that year. Data Colada's post about their examination of Gino is also cited in her lawsuit. According to the suit, the move removed Gino from her teaching, research, and titled professorship responsibilities. Gino sued Harvard and Data Colada for defamation, seeking $25 million in relief. The suit points to changes Harvard made to its internal policies regarding the integrity of its research in 2021, which appeared to be made in response to the allegations against Gino. Last year, a federal judge partially dismissed the lawsuit, denying Gino the ability to pursue charges that the university defamed her. However, the judge allowed Gino's claim that the university breached its contract with her to proceed. A month later, Gino amended the lawsuit to include gender discrimination claims. This article was originally published on
NBC News
27-05-2025
- Business
- NBC News
What to know as Harvard professor Francesca Gino has tenure revoked amid data fraud investigation
For the first time in roughly 80 years, Harvard University has revoked the tenure of one of its professors. Former Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino, widely known for researching honesty and ethical behavior, had her tenure revoked, a university spokesperson confirmed on Monday. Gino, 47, and her attorneys did not immediately return requests for comment. The former professor was placed on administrative leave in 2023 after multiple allegations of falsifying data surfaced. She has long maintained that she did not commit academic fraud. Harvard declined to provide additional details about her revocation, noting that it does not discuss personnel matters. The move does not appear to be related to the university's ongoing standoff with the Trump administration. For weeks, Harvard and the administration have been in legal battles over cuts to the university's federal funding and ability to enroll foreign students. However, the revocation represents an unprecedented penalty at Harvard, where no professor has lost their tenure since the 1940s, according to the student university paper The Harvard Crimson, during an exceptional time in the history of the nation's oldest university. Who is Professor Francesca Gino? Gino graduated with an economics degree from a small university in Italy, her home country, a copy of her resume says. She then earned her PhD in economics from the University of Pisa, before moving to the United States to work on a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard. "I was supposed to stay in the U.S. for about 6 to 9 months," she wrote in a 2023 post on LinkedIn. "But I truly loved my research and my work, so I never left." "I'll never forget how fortunate I was to have people at Harvard invest in me," she added. Gino then worked as a lecturer and researcher at Harvard Business School before becoming a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and later at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. According to her resume, she returned to Harvard as a professor at the university's business school in 2010, teaching graduate courses on decision-making and negotiation. Three years later, she published her first book, Sidetracked, on the science behind decision-making. In 2015, business school news site Poets&Quants named her a ' best 40 under 40 professor. ' Gino published a second book in 2018, Rebel Talent, in which she argues that rule breakers and contrarians are the most successful in business and in life. Throughout her academic career, she has published more than 140 scholarly papers, many of which have been widely featured in the media, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and NBC News. Her research centered on behavioral economics, organizational behavior, decision making, negotiation and ethics, according to Harvard's website. The Harvard Crimson reported that in 2018 and 2019, Gino was the fifth highest paid employee at the university, receiving more than $1 million in compensation per year. Some of her most prominent studies have been centered on dishonesty. Allegations of academic fraud A team of behavioral professors and researchers affiliated with the blog site Data Coloda began examining several studies co-authored by Gino in 2021, "because we had concerns that they contained fraudulent data," the site said. The site alleged that the data in the study Gino co-authored had been fabricated, which the researchers denied. Later that year, the blog said it shared concerns about more than four of Gino's other papers with Harvard Business School. Gino was then placed on unpaid administrative leave in June 2023 after an 18-month review by the university concluded that Gino committed "research misconduct," according to a lawsuit Gino filed against Harvard and Data Colada that year. Data Colada's post about their examination of Gino is also cited in her lawsuit. According to the suit, the move removed Gino from her teaching, research, and titled professorship responsibilities. Gino sued Harvard and Data Colada for defamation, seeking $25 million in relief. The suit points to changes Harvard made to its internal policies regarding the integrity of its research in 2021, which appeared to be made in response to the allegations against Gino. Last year, a federal judge partially dismissed the lawsuit, denying Gino the ability to pursue charges that the university defamed her. However, the judge allowed Gino's claim that the university breached its contract with her to proceed. A month later, Gino amended the lawsuit to include gender discrimination claims.
Newsweek
27-05-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Who Is Francesca Gino? Professor's Harvard Fraud Dispute Explained
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Harvard Business School (HBS) professor Francesca Gino has become the first tenured professor to be fired from the institution since the university created its tenure policies in the 1940s. Gino, who was placed on academic leave in 2023, has been accused of falsifying data for her research on honesty and ethical behavior. She has denied the claims on her website, saying: "I absolutely did not commit academic fraud." Gino is now suing the university after being banned from campus and from teaching, saying that the allegations and investigation against her were not made in good faith. She also claims that the "Interim Policy" which was created specifically to address her accusations was a breach of her contract as a tenured professor. In 2024, Judge Myong J. Joun dismissed her initial defamation claims against the university but allowed her to continue with her accusations that the university breached her contract through their disciplinary actions, as reported in the Harvard Crimson. A lawyer for Gino has been contacted via email for comment. An academic building is seen on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the United States on May 24, 2025. An academic building is seen on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the United States on May 24, 2025. Ziyu Julian Zhu/Xinhua/VCG via AP Images Who Is Francesca Gino? Francesca Gino worked as a professor at HBS between 2010 and 2023, and in 2018 was the fifth highest-paid professor at the university. Originally from Italy, Gino was known in academia as a pioneer in the field of ethics and decision-making. She produced more than 140 academic articles and two books on leadership, as well as being featured in several HBS books. She also worked as a leadership coach for people in several sectors including the Boston Celtics. Her 2018 book Rebel Talent focused on the idea of "positive deviance" at work, researching how people who rebel via curiosity and drive can have a beneficial impact on their workforces and partnerships. What Are the Fraud Allegations? Gino was first accused of falsifying data in 2021 by a website called Data Colada which analyses studies. Data Colada accused Gino and a team of researchers of misstating findings in a 2012 study on honesty. The paper was then retracted. According to Gino's filings against Harvard, Data Colada pointed to four studies authored by Gino in total that they claim created "concerns about perceived anomalies and "fraud" in the data." In 2023, Gino was placed on leave by the university following an internal investigation into the claims against her. Data Colada's collection of evidence against Gino was compiled in a September 2023 blog post on their site. She has denied all allegations of fraud and has said her inability to access data and information from Harvard is making it difficult for her to prove her case. Her firing comes after former Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned from her position in 2024 following accusations of academic plagiarism. And, amid the ongoing lawsuits and debates between Harvard and the Trump Administration. What Has Francesca Gino said Gino has filed suit against the university and has also posted to her website detailing her stance on the accusations 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. I did not falsify data to bolster any result. I did not commit the offense I am accused of. Period," said Gino. She has not spoken out yet on being formally fired from her tenure position.
