First, she falsified the data used in her research. Next, she vehemently denied it. Then, she sued. Former Harvard Business School professor and behavioral scientist, Francesca Gino, created a mess on top of a mess, by wreaking havoc in the academic world then bringing it to the steps of justice in Massachusetts’ U.S. District Court.
Her $25 million lawsuit sent a chill through the scientific community. Gino named not only Harvard personnel, but also Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson and Joe Simmons, the authors of Data Colada, a blog focused on statistics which sometimes reports on data anomalies. The original complaint alleged Data Colada’s authors of defamation, civil conspiracy to commit defamation, and intentional interference with contractual relations, based on their published analysis regarding the validity of Gino’s data and their interactions with Harvard relating to Gino’s data.
The scientific community was taken back. The Harvard Crimson describes the devastating impact of this lawsuit on the security of academic debate and discussion. Another fear with litigation is that a court could open the door to scrutinize scientific procedure, evidence, and data. They rallied behind Data Colada raising over $350,000 on GoFundMe to support the authors’ legal defense.
On the other hand, the legal community passed Gino’s defamation claims as meritless. Neither precedent nor Judge Myong J. Joun of the Massachusetts District Court saw any plausibility in Gino’s defamation claims. His Memorandum of Decision, filed on September 11, 2024, cites cases from 1994 and 2015, holding, when science is at issue in defamation cases, there is a reliance on scientific methods to determine the truth. So, Judge Joun granted the motion to dismiss both defamation claims against Harvard personnel and Data Colada.
In their most recent blog concerning the case, Data Colada compared their original findings to Harvard’s own investigation report to reach their correct conclusions about how Gino manipulated the data. They state it best when they say, “We were right about how the data were altered, Gino’s prevailing explanation for the alterations does not make sense, and yet we are the defendants in this case.”
Final Notes:
Due to the litigation, the 1281-page Harvard report of the school’s findings against Gino was released to the public.
On October 21st, Gino filed a second amended complaint. This amendment removed the Data Colada authors and both defamation counts. The case against the Harvard personnel will continue through 2025 on discrimination allegations.
Thus far, the donations to Data Colada had not been used because the universities of Data Colada’s authors have funded their defense, according to their GoFundMe update on August 2nd, 2024. Any funds not used for future legal defense will be donated to The Scientific Integrity Fund.
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