Harvard fires business professor who manipulated data in studies on dishonesty

A professor at Harvard had her tenure revoked and was fired from her post after an investigation concluded that she had manipulated data in her studies on dishonesty.

Per WGHB, the Harvard Corporation made the final decision to revoke Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino’s tenure earlier this month, and sources told the outlet that administrators notified business school faculty of the decision last week.

Harvard had launched an internal investigation into Gino’s work in 2022 after Data Colada, a blog run by behavioral scientists that examines academic research, raised concerns over Gina’s work. The investigation concluded that she had manipulated data to support her hypotheses in at least four studies. Gino has been known for research on honesty and ethical behavior.

Following the investigation, the school in 2023 placed Gino on unpaid administrative leave. The school also initiated a formal review of her tenure at the request of Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar, per the Harvard Crimson.

In response, Gino denied the allegations and filed a $25 million lawsuit against the school, Data Colada bloggers, and Datar. She alleged invasion of privacy, gender discrimination, and defamation in her suit, and that the accusations had irreparably damaged her career and reputation. 

A district court judge dismissed Gino’s defamation claims in September 2024, but allowed part of her case relating to the allegation that Harvard breached Gino’s contract to move forward. In October 2024, she filed a motion to amend her suit and add claims of Title VII and discrimination claims. 

Per the New York Post, Data Colada found that four papers published between 2012 and 2020 that Gino co-authored contained "fraudulent data." Concerns were raised about one study which claimed that requiring people to sign an honesty pledge at the beginning of a form rather than at the end resulted in a significant boost to honest responses. That study was retracted in 2021 due to evidence of data fabrication, which replied on, to support its findings, three separate lab experiments.