Harvard University has revoked the tenure of Francesca Gino, a professor of business administration, over data fraud allegations that have been consistently levied against her.
Gino has been attempting to defend herself against the allegations over the last four years, according to a report from The Harvard Crimson. After describing Gino’s reputation before the allegations as “honest” and “ethical,” The Crimson conceded that she has been accused of manipulating data in order to support her hypotheses.
Prior to losing her academic position, Gino had attempted to keep her job at the elite institution for two years. In 2018 and 2019, she was the fifth-highest paid employee at the prestigious school, receiving more than $1 million in compensation each year, Fox News reported.
Gino had authored more than 140 scholarly papers and won several awards before her work received intense scrutiny from scholars who questioned her data in a series of blog posts published on Data Colada.
“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,” the blog reads. “We discovered evidence of fraud in papers spanning over a decade, including papers published quite recently (in 2020).”
Researchers initially shared their concerns with the Harvard Business School in 2021. Gino responded by filing a lawsuit against both the blog authors and Harvard, some parts of which are still ongoing.
“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,” Gino said in her most recent comments on the allegations.
The latest scandal comes after former Harvard President Claudine Gay was forced to resign after credible evidence of plagiarism.
The former president has been accused of copy/pasting works from others in more than 50 academic papers, including including her 1997 doctoral dissertation, which was corrected after Harvard determined that it contained “duplicative language without appropriate attribution.”
In a letter announcing her resignation, Gay blamed calls for her resignation on “racial animus” and “personal attacks.”
