Judge Throws Out Every Claim In Francesca Gino’s Lawsuit Against Harvard

Francesca Gino filed a $25 million defamation lawsuit against Harvard, the dean of the Harvard Business School, and Data Colada. On November 3, a court ruled against her

Francesca Gino spent three years arguing that Harvard broke its own rules to take away her tenure. A federal judge has now decided that no jury needs to hear it.

In a ruling dated Nov. 2, U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun granted Harvard summary judgment on all of Gino’s claims – breach of contract, sex discrimination, retaliation and the rest. Her claims against Srikant Datar, the Harvard Business School dean who disciplined her, end too.

“No reasonable jury could conclude on the identified evidence that Harvard revoked tenure dishonestly or without a reasonable basis, prematurely removed Gino from her appointment, or materially violated a contractual procedure,” Joun writes in his decision.

HOW WE GOT HERE

The data-fraud watchdog blog Data Colada accused Gino in 2021 of manipulating data in several studies. After an HBS investigation found research misconduct, Datar put her on leave in 2023, and she sued Harvard, Datar and the Data Colada authors for $25 million, as Poets&Quants reported at the time.

On May 15, 2025, the Harvard Corporation voted unanimously to remove her from her tenured job, according to the ruling. No professor is known to have lost tenure at Harvard since at least the 1940s, The Harvard Crimson reported. Hedge fund manager and HBS alum Bill Ackman has since publicly backed her.

In his opinion, Judge John stresses what he is not deciding. The ruling “does not amount to an independent judicial finding that Gino committed research misconduct,” he writes. The question is whether Harvard acted honestly, reasonably and by its own rules – far narrower than what Gino’s lawyers wanted a jury to answer.

WHAT’S LEFT

Harvard’s defamation counterclaim, filed in August 2025, is now the only claim in the case. Harvard accuses Gino of defaming the university and of giving investigators a doctored dataset, a charge she denies.

Harvard also asked the court on Sept. 11 to sanction her, accusing her of concealing or destroying evidence and seeking a default judgment – a win without a trial. Joun will hold a hearing on that motion.

Gino’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed. It is not clear whether she will appeal.

WHY GINO LOST

In a filing P&Q covered in August, Gino’s lawyers said Harvard had to prove to a jury that she actually committed “grave misconduct.” Joun disagrees. Harvard’s tenure rules do not promise her “an independent jury retrial” of the research findings, he writes. He also rejects seven specific complaints about how the investigation was run, including how Harvard applied the six-year limit on old research and the limit on advisers.

Gino’s claim that Datar cut a secret deal with Data Colada fares no better. Joun finds she offers only speculation and a colleague’s account of what Datar told him – and even if the deal happened, she does not show it broke a policy or changed the outcome.

Gino also argued that her 2023 punishments – unpaid leave, a cutoff of campus access and the loss of her named professorship – amounted to firing her before Harvard followed the required process. Joun writes that “substantial disciplinary sanctions are not automatically an actual removal from the continuing tenured appointment.” In Joun’s view, her appointment ended only after the full tenure process ran its course.

On the sex-discrimination claims, Joun finds no link between Gino’s gender and the actions against her. Her evidence that Harvard has long treated women worse than men, he says, rests on her own statements and vague claims about unnamed speakers and unspecified professors.

“Plaintiff’s evidence is plainly insufficient,” he writes.

Read Judge Joun’s decision here.

DON’T MISS FRANCESCA GINO TELLS COURT HARVARD ‘TRIES TO COMPLETELY SIDESTEP’ THE CENTRAL QUESTION IN HER CASE

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