Francesca Gino’s Letter To Her Harvard Business School Colleagues

In a heartfelt letter to her Harvard Business School colleagues, the embattled HBS Professor Francesca Gino is telling faculty that what happened to her could happen to anyone.

“I worry the School has fallen into a bad pattern here – multiple faculty wrongly accused and haphazardly investigated, in processes that usually look rigorous but fail in a closer look,” she wrote in the letter obtained by Poets&Quants. “This is not the community we want, nor is it what we promised each other. It needs to change. Because if the School can do this to me, then it could also wrong any of you. As you think about what happened to me, I hope you’ll also raise questions about processes used to investigate other colleagues in the past.”

An award-winning behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School, Gino was placed on an unpaid administrative leave by Dean Srikant Datar in June after a three-person committee of faculty found her guilty of research misconduct. In an unprecedented move, Dean Datar also began the process of stripping her of tenure. The school’s investigation of her work occurred after a blog called Data Colada accused her of fabricating data in at least four published research papers, and possibly many more. Gino, however, has maintained her innocence and filed a $25 million lawsuit against Harvard, Dean Datar and the authors of the blog for defamation, breach of contract and gender discrimination.

FRANCESCA GINO’S REBUTTAL TO THE HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL FACULTY

In her letter to HBS faculty, she offers a rebuttal of the allegations and notes that the school prevented her from speaking out about them during its investigation based on a new disciplinary policy that was put in place by Dean Datar without the approval or the knowledge of the faculty. “The new policy forbade me from talking to anyone else about the charges made against me. I took this requirement seriously, to the point that even my closest friends, collaborators and colleagues at HBS and outside of HBS had no idea I was under investigation during the entire 18-month period,” she wrote. “It was an incredibly lonely time for me. Beyond its effects on my mental health, the restriction on who I could talk to also impeded my efforts to defend myself. If I wanted to ask a coauthor, RA, or lab administrator what he or she remembered about a given study, such as who did a given task or where the raw data was stored, I could not discuss why I needed the information. I could reveal neither the urgency nor the importance.”

Gino, who also put together a new website to publicly defend herself, told the faculty she wanted to reach out to them because some may think her silence has been “an admission of guilt.” On her website, she again maintains she did nothing wrong. “The information that has been available to the public, and the analysis posted by critics, may sound compelling,” she states. “But the information is incomplete and misleading. The record needs to be corrected. This website is my attempt to do so. Let that correction begin with this simple and unambiguous statement: I absolutely did not commit academic fraud.”

Gino’s letter to HBS professors begins simply:

“I’m writing to you after sitting in near silence for over three months since receiving the news that I was being put on unpaid administrative leave, losing health benefits for my family, and being banned from campus, teaching, and research. As you can imagine, this has been excruciating. But it has also greatly impacted those around me – my family, my mentors, my collaborators, and my students. While many of you reached out privately offering your support, others may have interpreted my silence as an admission of guilt. I am writing you today to break my silence. I hope you’ll keep an open mind as you read this, as I know you would hope your peers would do the same for you.”

‘HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL STRUCTURED THE PROCESS SO THAT I WAS IN NO POSITION TO MOUNT A SERIOUS OPPOSITION’

As she makes clear in her lawsuit, Gino raises substantial issues with the process used by Harvard Business School to come to the conclusion that she is guilty of research misconduct. “You may ask why I did not offer this rebuttal during the HBS investigation and therefore defend myself against the allegations associated with my research. As you learn more about the process, you will see: The School structured the process so that I was in no position to mount a serious opposition. Although HBS claims their investigative process took 18 months, I was only given weeks (in one case, 2 weeks) to digest forensics reports from the consultant HBS hired, as well as to respond. All this while teaching and performing my regular faculty duties. And remember: I had no expert help – not one data analyst, IT expert, or statistician.

“Think about this. Data Colada had years to put together their allegations, HBS and its outside consultants had months to do their investigation, and yet I had only a few weeks to digest it all and respond. And again, I had to do it without specialist advisors. Now that HBS has concluded its investigation, I am finally able to enlist the help of others to prove my innocence. Even with the help of my team, it is a time-consuming process. I am committed even more than ever before to what Harvard stands for: Veritas…I’ve watched my career be decimated, and my collaborators suffer. People have formed opinions of the limited information available. And I get it. But that information is incomplete. So, today I am breaking from the silence and launching a website: www.francesca-v-harvard.org to share information about both the broken investigation process as well as the analyses I have undertaken over the past few months to prove my innocence.”

Among other things, the website includes Gino’s explanations for what went wrong with the studies for which she has been accused of fraud. ” “Within the first half-day of my IT expert looking at the unusual survey responses in which numerous subjects said their “year in school” was “Harvard”, he amassed multiple forms of evidence showing that these answers came from a single scammer who was doing the survey repeatedly for money,” she wrote. “If my IT expert could figure this out so quickly, why didn’t the Committee figure it out? Sadly, there is no indication that the Committee even tried. In refusing to pursue the theories I offered, in denying me access to the experts I would need to defend myself, and in failing to investigate appropriately on its own, the process HBS followed is plainly neither comprehensive nor fair.”

She also defends her decision to file the lawsuit against the university and the blog’s authors. “Harvard has ruined my career, wrongfully,” Gino wrote. “The only way to right this wrong is for me to sue.”

‘HARVARD ULTIMATELY WILL BE VINDICATED’

A Harvard Business School spokesperson has said the school  will prevail in its defense of Gino’s lawsuit. “Harvard ultimately will be vindicated,” claims Harvard Business School’s PR representative in an emailed statement to The Harvard Crimson. “Professor Gino has raised allegations in her lawsuit that Harvard strongly denies,” wrote HBS spokesperson Brian Kenny. “We believe that the investigation — carried out by three senior HBS faculty members — was thorough, fair, and fully complied with HBS’s policy and procedure for dealing with allegations of research misconduct.”

And in an earlier email to Harvard Business School faculty, Dean Datar defended his decision to discipline Gino. ” I ultimately accepted the investigation committee’s recommended sanctions, which included immediately placing Professor Gino on administrative leave and correcting the scientific record (a measure incumbent on every responsible academic institution when research misconduct is found),” Datar added.

“I did so after consulting confidentially with a small number of individuals at HBS and Harvard, including senior faculty members here at the School, as is permitted by our policy. The sanctions reflect a shared belief that the misconduct represented a significant violation of academic integrity and that the evidence not only met but surpassed the applicable preponderance of evidence standard. I shared my conclusions with Professor Gino and, in accordance with our policy and consistent with University practice, began implementing the institutional actions.”

Gino’s full letter to colleagues follows:

Dear Colleagues,

I’m writing to you after sitting in near silence for over three months since receiving the news that I was being put on unpaid administrative leave, losing health benefits for my family, and being banned from campus, teaching, and research. As you can imagine, this has been excruciating. But it has also greatly impacted those around me – my family, my mentors, my collaborators, and my students.

While many of you reached out privately offering your support, others may have interpreted my silence as an admission of guilt. I am writing you today to break my silence. I hope you’ll keep an open mind as you read this, as I know you would hope your peers would do the same for you.

I spent the last 13 years on the faculty at HBS. I have always taken great pride in what the School stands for: excellence, respect, community. I believe we all want for those values to come through in our actions across all our activities, whether we are teaching, doing research, mentoring, taking on leadership roles or administrative tasks. And thus making the decision to sue my own institution was devastating. But I was left with no alternative, as I will share more about here. I am innocent. And in the spirit of Veritas, I need to right this wrong.

These accusations have been riddled with procedural issues that prevented me from proving my innocence.

Departing from their own stated policy, Data Colada did not give me the opportunity to address their charges before they complained to HBS nor before they posted allegations to their website. Had they provided me with the same professional courtesy as they have everyone before me, I do not believe we would be where we are today.

HBS significantly and repeatedly departed from their procedures too:

• • HBS created a new research misconduct policy just for me, after Data Colada presented the School with complaints about my work. Not only did HBS not vet this new policy with faculty, it did not even inform faculty that this new policy (that purported to supersede the rights of tenured faculty under the Third Statute) was in effect for a full 2 years, even as it was being applied to me.
  • In sharp contrast to the old policy, the new policy limited the number of advisors I could talk to—I was allowed just two. My first advisor, as recommended by HBS Research Integrity Officer, was an attorney to help me make sense of the process. My second advisor was a respected HBS colleague who was well-versed in how Harvard usually handles these situations. The new policy banned me from seeking support from anyone other than these two individuals or risk termination. Thus, I could not hire or consult with experts in IT, data forensics, or statistics. Without such experts, I was at an obvious disadvantage in figuring out how to properly analyze the allegations against me, much less rebut them.
  • The new policy forbade me from talking to anyone else about the charges made against me. I took this requirement seriously, to the point that even my closest friends, collaborators and colleagues at HBS and outside of HBS had no idea I was under investigation during the entire 18-month period. It was an incredibly lonely time for me. Beyond its effects on my mental health, the restriction on who I could talk to also impeded my efforts to defend myself. If I wanted to ask a coauthor, RA, or lab administrator what he or she remembered about a given study, such as who did a given task or where the raw data was stored, I could not discuss why I needed the information. I could reveal neither the urgency nor the importance.

Not only did the School impose a new policy that hindered my ability to defend myself, the School then did not follow its new policy correctly, further denying me a fair opportunity to refute the charges made against me. As an example, the new policy requires the investigating committee to investigate the allegations with “thoroughness, fairness, and objectivity,” and to “diligently pursue all significant issues and leads.” Essentially, leave no stone unturned.

But, when I provided plausible alternative explanations for perceived anomalies, the committee disregarded them – in one especially glaring instance, replying with a single footnote that called my theories “irrelevant.” My theories should have been investigated with appropriate care – and since the School’s new procedure limited me from doing that myself, the Committee was obliged to take on this task. The Committee should have used its superior resources – data consultants, IT experts, ample time – to make a genuine investigation.

Within the first half-day of my IT expert looking at the unusual survey responses in which numerous subjects said their “year in school” was “Harvard”, he amassed multiple forms of evidence showing that these answers came from a single scammer who was doing the survey repeatedly for money. If my IT expert could figure this out so quickly, why didn’t the Committee figure it out? Sadly, there is no indication that the Committee even tried. In refusing to pursue the theories I offered, in denying me access to the experts I would need to defend myself, and in failing to investigate appropriately on its own, the process HBS followed is plainly neither comprehensive nor fair.

The committee also failed to apply the new policy’s burden of proof and shifted the burden of proof onto me to disprove research misconduct. That was not the appropriate standard of proof under the new policy.

I’ve watched my career be decimated, and my collaborators suffer. People have formed opinions off the limited information available. And I get it. But that information is incomplete. So, today I am breaking from the silence and launching a website: www.francesca-v-harvard.org to share information about both the broken investigation process as well as the analyses I have undertaken over the past few months to prove my innocence.

I know how busy life at HBS can be, but I truly hope you’ll spend some time reading this. Because if the School can do this to me, then it could also wrong any of you. As you think about what happened to me, I hope you’ll also raise questions about processes used to investigate other colleagues in the past. I worry the School has fallen into a bad pattern here – multiple faculty wrongly accused and haphazardly investigated, in processes that usually look rigorous but fail in a closer look. This is not the community we want, nor is it what we promised each other. It needs to change.

On the website, you’ll find my analyses for one of the studies in question, Study 1 of the 2012 PNAS paper. The allegation is simply incorrect. As I show in the analysis, Data Colada cherry-picked the data points to analyze: They looked at supposed errors in two of the conditions in the study, but not the third, where data errata don’t follow the pattern Data Colada claimed. They did not use their own metric for calling out perceived anomalies consistently. And their analysis of Excel calcChain is wrong: as Microsoft can attest, calcChain doesn’t do what they say it does, and I was able to demonstrate this in some simple examples anyone can reproduce.

Some of you may have seen Data Colada’s most recent post. It is unfortunate that Data Colada decided to quote exhibits from my lawsuit complaint – exhibits I used as evidence for a claim of defamation, because the information in them is misleading and inaccurate. You may also benefit from knowing that in the appendices of the retraction notices that HBS sent to journals, HBS quoted selectively from its forensics consultants – and pulled in unattributed extended verbatim quotes from Data Colada. HBS circulated the resulting mash-up with no statement of authorship – no person or team taking either credit or responsibility. And the combination is especially misleading. Notably, the mash-up selectively omits crucial provisions that the professional data analysts included, such as the fact that without the original data, no conclusion of research misconduct can be made.

You may ask why I did not offer this rebuttal during the HBS investigation and therefore defend myself against the allegations associated with my research. As you learn more about the process, you will see: The School structured the process so that I was in no position to mount a serious opposition. Although HBS claims their investigative process took 18 months, I was only given weeks (in one case, 2 weeks) to digest forensics reports from the consultant HBS hired, as well as to respond. All this while teaching and performing my regular faculty duties. And remember: I had no expert help – not one data analyst, IT expert, or statistician.

Think about this. Data Colada had years to put together their allegations, HBS and its outside consultants had months to do their investigation, and yet I had only a few weeks to digest it all and respond. And again, I had to do it without specialist advisors.

Now that HBS has concluded its investigation, I am finally able to enlist the help of others to prove my innocence. Even with the help of my team, it is a time-consuming process. I am committed even more than ever before to what Harvard stands for: Veritas. I’ll update my website as I continue my search for truth.

With appreciation, Francesca

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