Francesca Gino Amends Lawsuit Against Harvard

Harvard Business School Professor Francesca Gino. Though her defamation claims in a lawsuit against Harvard University and others have previously been dismissed, she hopes an amended complaint will give her her day in court.

Though a federal judge last month dismissed a major portion of Francesca Gino’s controversial $25 million lawsuit against Harvard University and others, the embattled professor this week filed a new motion to amend her complaint. She is asking to include Title VII and discrimination claims against the university as well as Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar.

In September, U.S. District Court Judge Myong J. Joun dismissed Gino’s defamation claims in a lawsuit filed against the school and an academic blog that had accused her of research fraud, ruling that Gino is a public figure. Authors of the blog Data Colada, all prominent data and behavioral scientists, were listed in that complaint. However, they are crossed out of the second amended complaint Gino is asking the court to file. They are Uri Simonsohn, Professor of Behavioral Science at ESADE; Leif Nelson, the Ewald T. Grether Professor in Business Administration & Marketing at Berkeley Haas; and Joe Simmons, the Dorothy Silberberg Professor of Applied Statistics at The Wharton School.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees and job applicants from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Gino filed her claims for sex discrimination under Title VII and the Massachusetts Fair Employment Practices Act in the fall of 2023.

“In a system that claims fairness, Professor Gino was subject to an unprecedented and retroactive policy—one crafted specifically for her as a woman, while her male peers were protected by long-established protocols This is not just selective justice; this is discrimination hiding in plain sight,” Andrew Miltenberg, Gino’s lawyer, wrote in a statement.

TITLE VII AND DISCRIMINATION CLAIMS

Gino’s amended complaint alleges “systemic gender bias” at HBS where female professors have been unfairly denied tenure, pressured to resign, or disciplined more severely than their male colleagues. The amended complaint removes much of the defamation claims made against the Data Colada authors, and adds instances in which Gino claims HBS officials disciplined “unnamed colleagues” differently depending on their gender.

Examples alleged in the complaint include a female professor pushed out after being accused of mistreating staff, even though the issues were not serious. Another faced accusations right before her tenure review, which were used to intimidate her into leaving. Gino herself was placed on unpaid leave for two years under a newly created policy, which was harsher than the one applied to male professors in similar situations. Male professors accused of research misconduct, the complaint alleges, have received lighter treatment and, in many cases, faced no consequences at all.

In her September decision, Judge Joun did not strike down Gino’s claims that the disciplinary policy used against her violated Harvard’s own disciplinary and tenure policies. Joun also didn’t strike down Gino’s Title X claims of discrimination against Harvard. That portion of the lawsuit is still open, and the judge will make a ruling on whether to allow Gino’s amended complaint in the future.

For some, that remains among the most controversial aspects of the case. In October 2023, seven tenured professors at Harvard Business School published a letter in The Harvard Crimson criticizing Dean Datar of violating the school’s norms of policy development.

“We are speaking out today because Dean Datar has a responsibility to HBS faculty to explain the changes he made to the research integrity process,” wrote the professors who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation. “We are not asking for details of the lawsuit or Harvard’s litigation strategy. Our focus is institutional process and integrity, ensuring each of us are treated fairly and equally with procedures that reflect what HBS stands for.”

A TWO-YEAR SAGA CONTINUES

The saga began in July 2021 when the Data Colada authors reached out to Harvard Business School with concerns about anomalies and “fraud” in four of Gino’s published papers. HBS investigated the allegations using a new employment policy that had not been through the normal approval process and, the lawsuit alleges, was created specifically for Gino’s case.

In June 2023, after the 18-month investigation, Gino was placed on unpaid administrative leave for two years. That same month, Data Colada published the first in a four-part series detailing data anomalies it perceived in Gino’s papers, three of which have since been retracted or are under review. Harvard also notified Gino that it had begun the process of reviewing her tenure.

In August 2023, Gino sued Harvard University, Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar, and the three authors of Data Colada for $25 million in damages.

Though Judge Joun dismissed many of Gino’s defamation claims, she is seeking to keep alive her allegations against Harvard, its business school, and its dean specifically. The Harvard Defendants are expected to file their response next month and the court has set the Initial Scheduling Conference to November 20.

DON’T MISS: WHAT FRANCESCA GINO’S HARVARD LAWSUIT SAYS ABOUT DATA COLADA’S FRAUD ALLEGATIONS OR  THE ACADEMIC MOB COMES FOR A HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL THOUGHT LEADER