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Greed-to-Grief, No. 7

Greed-to-Grief, No. 7

Tenured ethics professor at Harvard lied and is kicked out of the university

George Pillari
June 12, 2025

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Francesca Gino was a star Behavioral Sciences professor at Harvard earning more than a million dollars per year. She specialized in ethics and honesty.

She once published a study that concluded that if people signed an honesty pledge at the beginning of a form, rather than the end, they were more likely to be truthful. She faked the data, was caught, and had her tenure revoked.

Disgraced and former Harvard professor Francesca Gino

What is tenure? The path to tenure is a long one. A candidate starts graduate school to earn a PhD that usually requires four to seven years, followed by post-doctoral research of another year or two.

With the PhD and post-doc in hand, the next step is to land an assistant professorship position and produce valuable research for six to eight years. Then the candidate is evaluated by the senior faculty and is granted or denied tenure.

Those denied tenure are given a year’s notice to pack their bags and move on. Those granted tenure are essentially given a lifelong employment contract. The tenure system is supposed give these researchers the time and space to study the world’s problem with a focus on their discipline (eg, chemical engineering, philosophy, economics, etc.).

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Francesca Gino was the first Harvard professor to have tenure revoked in more than 80 years. She was terminated from her position and kicked out of the university.

So, how did Gino get caught? There is a group of three data geeks called Data Colada that review scientific work like the studies produced by Gino. (Note: I love these guys.) One of the sacred principles of academic research is that once your findings are published, others should be able to use your data and replicate your results.

The Data Colada guys found holes in Gino’s honesty-pledge study and then found more holes in more of Gino’s studies.

Ironically, The Latin word Veritas translates to “The Truth”

But the fallout is worse than you think. Gino published 138 articles and had co-authors on almost all of them. Every one of those co-authors now have damaged reputations.

Even if they were not on the half-dozen papers that were retracted, their association with the radioactive Gino has tainted their scholarly work. They trusted in the integrity that Francesca Gino never had.

Those outside of academia suffered as well. For example, take Gino’s paper entitled Religious Shoppers Spend Less. How many companies built strategies around this analysis? Hey, published by a Harvard professor, it must be true!

Or, how many households discussed Feeling Authentic Serves as a Buffer Against Rejection at the dinner table as a teachable moment for children.

The path from Greed-to-Grief

In the years leading up Gino earning tenure in 2014, she was involved in data collection and analysis on almost every paper on which she was a co-author.

(It is quite common in academic publishing to “share the wealth” and have many co-authors on a paper since the courtesy goes both ways and helps researchers gather more publishing credit.)

Once granted tenure, there was a sharp decline in Gino’s involvement in data collection for her studies.

Repeated and intentional deception, otherwise known as fraud is what happened here. To its credit, Harvard listened to Data Colada and then took swift, decisive, and final action by revoking Gino’s tenure, and terminating her employment and any benefits she had.

She is banned from the Harvard campus.

Key Takeaways

As the saying goes, if you lie down with dogs, you get fleas. Gino was a perceived as a rising star, so everybody wanted to publish with her. Seems like nobody double-checked any of Gino’s previous work, something you think other professors would do.
I have been inside of competitive and highly respected academic institutions. The competition and peer pressure is just as bad as in the business world. Maybe worse.
A mentor once told me, “Once it is put in writing, it is there forever, so make sure it is correct.” Lifelong advice that I have tried to follow and would have been good for Gino to hear.

Things I think about

The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 claimed more than 35,000 lives. The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora killed more than 100,000. Both are located in the Ring of Fire, where 90% of all volcanic activity on Earth occurs.

Greed-to-Grief, No. 7

Tenured ethics professor at Harvard lied and is kicked out of the university

The path from Greed-to-Grief

Key Takeaways

Things I think about

Recommended reading

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