Harvard is very good at celebrating its faculty’s discoveries, from Mikhail Lukin’s advances in quantum computing to Claudia Goldin’s Nobel Prize-winning research on women, work, and the gender wage gap. It should be. Those achievements reflect rigor, ingenuity, and persistence.
Retractions sit at the other end of the reputational spectrum. They’re usually discussed when research has gone badly wrong, often after someone else has uncovered the problem.
That’s been the pattern in two recent Harvard-related cases.
Harvard revoked HBS professor Francesca Gino’s tenure after research-integrity blog Data Colada identified anomalies in her work and a Harvard investigation found Gino had falsified data in multiple studies. Gino denies wrongdoing and continues to challenge the decision in court.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Harvard Medical School (HMS) affiliate, paid $15 million to settle federal allegations over image-manipulation concerns raised by internet sleuth Sholto David in NIH-funded research and grant applications associated with two HMS professors. The settlement didn’t include an admission of intentional fraud.
The cases differ, but both began with outside scrutiny. What happens when Harvard researchers discover serious problems in work they authored or oversaw first and correct the record themselves?
One model could come from outside Harvard. This week, the Center for Scientific Integrity announced the inaugural winners of its Ctrl-Z Award, which recognizes researchers who voluntarily correct serious problems in their published work despite the professional risks.
Alyssa Smith received it after discovering a “fatal error” in code underlying a paper she had first-authored while completing her PhD. UC Davis assistant professor Kate Laskowski won for retracting several papers after learning that a collaborator had fabricated their underlying data, despite fearing the retractions “might mark the end of my career.”
Those fears are understandable. For graduate students and junior faculty, a single paper may represent a substantial share of the publication record used in hiring and promotion decisions. Depending on the field, replacing that work with new research can take years. Staying quiet may seem the less damaging choice.
But that calculation may be changing. For example, Refine, an AI-assisted tool co-founded by a former Harvard economics professor and recent Harvard master’s graduate, can identify errors in reasoning and calculations in research papers.
This week, Refine announced partnerships with the American Economic Association and the Econometric Society, which now use its technical verification in their feedback and review process. With the likely identification of more errors on the horizon, universities have greater reason to make prompt correction a credible choice.
Not every correction merits recognition. Some retractions follow honest error; others follow negligence or misconduct. Rewarding self-correction can clarify that distinction further and encourage researchers to come forward when the problem is the former.
Harvard’s own policy already recognizes this difference. It says that honest error doesn’t constitute research misconduct, though the University may still seek a correction or retraction. But policy alone may not overcome the professional costs of stepping forward, especially for earlier-career academics.
Harvard could help change those incentives. Whether through its own Ctrl-Z Award or other forms of recognition, Harvard could affirm that responsible self-correction is an act of respected scientific integrity.
With Veritas as its north star, Harvard’s standard can’t be that its researchers are never wrong. The pursuit of truth also depends on what researchers, and Harvard, do after discovering an error.
Ask 1636
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Q: How have Harvard and its peers responded to Secretary McMahon’s new letter?
So far, Yale is the first Ivy League university to respond publicly to the Department of Education’s (ED) request for universities to publish reform plans by the end of 2026. As of publication, Harvard and the other Ivies haven’t yet responded publicly. All are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU), whose president said she plans to encourage member universities to join the initiative.
In a community message, Yale President Maurie McInnis said the University will review ED’s questions and solicit input from faculty, staff, students, and alumni through an online form. Yale also published an FAQ clarifying that the letter is unrelated to ongoing Department of Justice investigations and that McInnis didn’t receive advance notice from the government.
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FYIs
Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin To Leave Harvard for Stanford Graduate School of Education Deanship
Harvard Radcliffe Institute Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin will step down after eight years to become dean of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. She will begin the role in the upcoming academic year; Harvard hasn’t yet announced her successor.
Brown-Nagin, a legal historian and constitutional law scholar, joined Harvard’s faculty in 2012 and holds appointments at Harvard Law School and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She has led Radcliffe since 2018, expanding its fellowship programs while also taking on several University-wide assignments.
Brown-Nagin led the committee behind Harvard’s Legacy of Slavery Initiative and later co-chaired the University’s Working Group on Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue, which found that 45% of students feel uncomfortable discussing controversial issues in class and 38% outside of class; 51% of faculty are uncomfortable leading class discussions on controversial topics; and 41% of faculty feel uneasy researching controversial subjects.
More recently, she convened a Radcliffe workshop on intellectual diversity whose participants called for campus programs to replace a “censorious culture with one that is more open to debate and disagreement” and for universities to promote the study of political imbalances on campus and strengthen professional norms among faculty.
Harvard Law School Clinical Instructors File Unfair Labor Practice Charge Over Withheld Raises
Harvard Law School clinical instructors represented by Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers (HAW-UAW) filed an unfair labor practice charge alleging that Harvard unlawfully withheld annual raises and performance bonuses from unionized academic workers while contract negotiations continue.
Union representatives said that while non-union employees received raises this summer, they knew of no HAW-UAW members in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Medical School, or Harvard Divinity School who did.
The charge alleges that Harvard changed an established wage practice without bargaining. Harvard disputes the claim, saying it can’t unilaterally implement raises outside the collective bargaining process and that the charge is “without merit.”
Last month, members of HAW-UAW, which represents roughly 2,500 non-tenure-track researchers and teachers across Harvard, voted to authorize a strike after 43 bargaining sessions. The vote allows union leaders to call a strike if negotiations remain stalled.
This labor dispute follows a 40-day strike this spring by the separate Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers (HGSU-UAW). Graduate student workers walked out from April 21 through June 1, including during final exams and Commencement, before ending the longest strike in the union’s history without a new contract.
Harvard Corporation Member Tino Cuéllar Joins Anthropic as Chief Global Affairs Officer
Harvard Corporation member Mariano-Florentino “Tino” Cuéllar (AB ’93) has been named Anthropic’s first chief global affairs officer. He will oversee the artificial intelligence company’s global policy and government relations.
Cuéllar has served on Harvard’s senior governing board since 2019, including as Chair of the Committee on Shareholder Responsibility and on the Facilities and Capital Planning committee. Prior to joining the Corporation, he served on Harvard’s Board of Overseers from 2017-2019.
Cuéllar, a former California Supreme Court justice and outgoing president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, had originally announced plans to return to his position as Stanford Law professor this summer and take on two additional leadership roles, directing both the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and Knight-Hennessy Scholars.
More News
More News at Harvard
Bloomberg: “Harvard Student Consultants Toil Over Slide Decks, Then Party With Snakes”
The Crimson: “Harvard’s New Preferred-Lender Program Leaves International Students Facing Uneven Loan Caps”
The Crimson: “Corporation Member Tino Cuéllar Floats Harvard ‘Outposts Abroad’ by 2030”
Radio Free Campus: “Harvard Needs More Conservatives with guest Harvey C. Mansfield” — American Council of Trustees and Alumni fellow Steve McGuire’s conversation with Government professor Harvey Mansfield (AB ’53, PhD ’61)
HBS Alumni: “A Name That Reflects Our Community” — conversation with Jana Kierstead and Robert Huckman (PhD ‘01) on renaming External Relations to Alumni Engagement and Development
JNS: “Former Ed dept secretaries back Harvard in campus Jew-hatred funding case”
The Boston Globe: “At Harvard’s Schlesinger Library, Recipes for Koala and Sheep’s Head Mould Tell a Complex American Tale”
The Crimson: “From 457 Dudley Affiliates: The Co-op Must Stay” — op-ed by FAS professor of Jewish History and Sephardic Civilization Jessica Marglin (AB ’06), Kai DeJesus (AB ’27), and Bethany Potter (AB ’13)
More News Beyond Harvard
U.S. Department of Justice: “Justice Department Finds Duke Law School Discriminates Based on Race in Admissions”
Wall Street Journal: “The ‘Fraud Squad’ at Caltech Will Catch You if You Lie on Your Application”
The Dartmouth: “New Executive Director Will Build Dartmouth Dialogues into ‘National Model’”
STAT News: “NIH plans to block international researchers on visas from accessing key funding avenue”
Bloomberg: “An Early Bet on SpaceX Led to a 30% Gain for This College Endowment”
AEI: “Thoughts on Secretary McMahon’s New Letter to Universities” — by American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Jenna Silber Storey
Bloomberg: “‘We Made a Mistake’: University of California Faculty Calls to Reinstate SAT”
Columbia Daily Spectator: “Columbia Undergraduate Schools Ask International Applicants Reason for Studying in US, Per Trump Deal”
JD Journal: “ABA Rejects Plan to End DEI Rule for Law Schools”
Ars Technica: “How a Yale AI-Cheating Dispute Became a 13-Count Federal Lawsuit”
Inside Higher Ed: “AI Detectors Are Out, New Approaches Are In”
Inside Higher Ed: “What We Know About DOJ Investigations Into Medical Schools”
Yale Daily News: “Facing Admissions Probe, McInnis Goes More Tight-Lipped Than Salovey”
Chronicle of Higher Education: “Alex Byrne Wants You to Know He's Not a Smug and Condescending Dickhead” — interview with MIT philosophy professor Alex Byrne
Wall Street Journal: “The Struggling Colleges Raiding Their Endowments to Pay the Bills”
The Daily Pennsylvanian: “SAS to Launch Chief AI Officer Initiative, Collaborate with Local Governments”
Columbia Daily Spectator: “Irving Institute Receives Over $77 Million in Federal Funding to Expand Clinical, Translational Research”
New York Times: “He Had Tenure. The New School Laid Him Off Anyway.” — feat. former New School economics professor Sanjay Reddy (PhD ‘00)
The Free Press: “Meet the Literature Professor Fired for Teaching Literature”
AEI: “The Graduate Schools Cutting Tuition as Loan Limits Take Effect”
The New Yorker: “The Future, Made in China”
The Boston Globe: “He Grew Up Near Boston, Went to Harvard, and Worked at MIT. Why Did He Found His Company in California?” — feat. Felix Wong (AB ‘14)
Free the Inquiry: “The AAUP Traded Its Credibility for a Ballot Line” — op-ed by former Dean of Harvard Medical School and HMS professor Jeffrey Flier
City Journal: “To Fix Higher Education, Fund Heterodox Research” — by University of Buckingham politics professor Eric Kaufmann and Founder of the Open Therapy Institute Andrew Hartz
The Jewish Chronicle: “The terrible waste that is Jewish Studies at American universities” — op-ed by Dominic Green, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute
Wall Street Journal Free Expression: “Med Schools Are Over Their Politics Fever” — op-ed by Yale School of Medicine lecturer Sally Satel
The Boston Globe: “Trump's Science Budget Undermines His Own 'Gold Standard' Pledge” — op-ed by Carnegie Mellon philosophy professor Kevin Zollman
Expression (FIRE Substack): “Universities’ double failure on antisemitism and free speech” — by University of Memphis Law student Max Friedman
Chronicle of Higher Education: “Colleges Teach Gender and Race. They Ignore Class.” — op-ed by Claremont McKenna government professor Jon Shields and Scripps history professor Corey Tazzara
The Free Press: “Who Had to Lose for Jason Arday to Win?” — op-ed by Leiden University international relations and international law professor Yua Yi Zhu