A disgraced Harvard dishonesty expert who was, ironically, accused of using fraudulent data in her studies has turned around and sued the prestigious university for at least $25 million. In a 100-page lawsuit filed Wednesday, Professor Francesca Gino claims that the school engaged in sexism in its decision to investigate and subsequently place her on administrative leave. “Harvard Business School discriminated against Plaintiff on the basis of sex when it elected to investigate her under a newly created policy specific to her case as opposed to relying on its existing policy and procedures,” the suit reads. Gino is also suing three professors behind the blog “Data Colada,” which was the first to report Gino’s alleged falsification of data and, as the lawsuit claims, directly led to her investigation. Gino alleges in the suit that Data Colada “threatened” to post the allegations to their blog, and that Harvard negotiated with the blog to investigate her before the findings were published—allegedly behind Gino’s back. Gino, who was one of the highest-paid employees at Harvard, has faced a reputational blow since the scandal broke in June. But she claims in the lawsuit that there is “no evidence” of her engaging in “any act of ‘data fraud’” in her studies.
