Harvard University has stripped a world-renowned scholar of her tenure status. The university’s top governing board, the Harvard Corporation, decided this month to revoke Francesca Gino’s tenure and end her employment at Harvard Business School.

Gino, who was celebrated for her research on honesty and ethical behavior, had faced scathing allegations of academic misconduct and fraud.

Several sources tell GBH News that Harvard administrators notified business faculty of their decision during a closed-door meeting this past week, and a university spokesperson confirmed the move. Gino did not immediately respond to several requests for comment.

In 2023, Harvard launched an internal investigation into Gino’s work after concerns were raised on a blog called Data Colada, run by a group of behavioral scientists who scrutinize academic research. The Harvard investigation concluded that Gino had manipulated certain data to support her hypotheses in at least four of her studies.

At that point, the university placed her on unpaid administrative leave.

Gino denied the allegations and filed a $25 million lawsuit against Harvard, Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar and the Data Colada bloggers. In court, she alleged defamation, gender discrimination and invasion of privacy. She also claimed the accusations irreparably damaged her reputation and career.

Last September, a federal judge in Boston dismissed Gino’s defamation claims against both Harvard and the bloggers, ruling she is a public figure so their scrutiny of her work was protected by the First Amendment.

At a time when American higher education and science are under intense scrutiny, Gino’s case has sparked widespread debate within the academic community – raising questions about research integrity, the responsibility of institutions in addressing scientific misconduct and the balance between protecting professors’ reputations and ensuring transparency.

Harvard declined to elaborate on Gino’s termination and tenure revocation, saying it’s a personnel matter. But the school noted that stripping a professor of tenure is a step it hasn’t taken in decades.

And GBH News could not find any other examples of the Harvard Corporation stripping a tenured professor of their status.

Before she stepped down as Harvard’s president under pressure in January of 2024, Claudine Gay faced a flurry of plagiarism allegations. Her high-profile resignation followed intense scrutiny over her testimony before Congress on campus antisemitism. The Harvard Corporation did not find plagiarism in her case but “inadequate citation,” and Gay still holds a tenured faculty position in the university’s African-American Studies Department.

Harvard Business School professors familiar with Gino’s case said they’re reluctant to be named publicly, citing concerns about feeding a rise in anti-intellectualism and what they characterize as the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on Harvard and academic freedom.

On Thursday, in a major escalation of the fight between the administration and the university, the Department of Homeland Security moved to revoke Harvard’s authority to enroll international scholars — a quarter of its student body — unless it hands over disciplinary records and footage related to campus protests. Such a revocation would be devastating for Harvard, especially its graduate schools that enroll high numbers of international students. Harvard sued and a federal judge has blocked the administration’s action for now. A hearing in the case is set for Thursday.

Some professors say they’re worried that President Trump and his supporters are undermining public trust in Harvard specifically and higher education in general – and as a result, the U.S. could lose a generation of researchers, domestically and from abroad. Originally from Italy, Gino has built a global reputation in academia and business, making presentations to Fortune 500 companies around the world. More than a third of students enrolled in Harvard Business School’s MBA program come from abroad, often paying full tuition and helping to subsidize the cost for domestic students receiving financial aid from the university.

Some lawyers say that tenure revocations and terminations like Gino’s might be more common if universities took a more proactive approach to uncovering academic misconduct. But that sort of policing could lead to undesirable consequences.

“Retaining on the faculty a large number of professors who are making groundbreaking claims and claims of discoveries is something that brings in grant money through attention – something that brings in student enrollment through attention,” said Eugenie Reich, a Boston-based attorney representing whistleblowers who report scientific fraud.

“There are a number of measures that academic institutions could very easily implement to prevent and reduce fraud,” said Reich. “They don’t implement those because they don’t want to [attract negative attention].”