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I don't know whether or not she's a fraud, but she's a social psychologist, so I assume so. What I can point out is that, from a lawyer-side viewpoint, and I mean literal lawyers, the process she went through is so staggeringly unjust that even if she's 100% obviously guilty it will still shock and horrify a lawyer. Universities are allowed to essentially act as courts for their employees and students, with far more power over them than a private-sector employer has in almost any field, and have turned that into running deranged kangaroo courts. It's of a piece with how they handle sexual assault allegations, to give an example with an opposite culture war valence (amusingly, Gino is suing under the same Title IX used to justify those star chambers).
Can you explain what you find so egregious here? Coming from industry, not academia, they seem to have gone to much greater lengths to treat Gino fairly than any other employer would have. I could be fired on the spot for falsifying data - Harvard:
I don't think there's any chance I'd remain employed for 2 years whilst credibly accused by peers, and filing lawsuits against my employer. 'Staggeringly unjust' doesn't really seem to fit the process as applied.
Well, most notably, a person of similar prominence in the private sector (Harvard is not the private sector) would have hired a lawyer day one. Harvard supposedly told Gino she was only allowed two "advocates", and that she was not allowed to recruit anyone else in her defense. Now, this is mostly unenforceable bullshit enabled by the psychological and cultural power universities have over people in their world, but it still works on them. I once had to deal with an academic disciplinary proceeding in my old career (innocent, to be clear, but some people had a grudge and made Complaints), and they made it clear that I could not have a lawyer in the room at any time or it would be considered a violation of the Process, and violation of the Process means they will find a way to find against you - but I could have a family member for 'emotional support'. As soon as they realized my chosen family member was also a lawyer, they adjourned, rang up the university's chief counsel, and went into full cover-their-ass drop-the-charges mode.
The thing is, in industry people get fired all the time, and they go on to the next job with often minimal consequences (I've heard some amusing examples of the extreme circumlocutions employers have to go to in references for fired employees to say someone's a bad apple without being caught doing so. Always liked "You'll be lucky if you can get him to work for you"). In academia, someone getting fired for cause destroys their professional, social, and usually emotional life. Decent chance you'll lose your spouse, if you're married. It's more like being defrocked from the priesthood than losing a job. And the university's facade of being a "court" makes it all the more damning if they find against you. Harvard appears to have done a pretty good job with the investigation, but at least according to Gino's defenders it was not an adversarial process where she had a fair chance to defend herself - the Kafkacrats of the university told her to shut up, did their own thing, and came back with a report over a year later without giving her a fair shake to mount her (admittedly, extremely weak) defense.
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The more I hear about university politics, the more I conclude that they have too much power. Their authority needs to be separated into isolated chunks. They should not be teaching courses and then evaluating their own performance by giving exams as well. They should not be setting tuition fees and also collecting them. They should not be both centers of mass-education for undergrads and also the education of the elite few who go on to PhD and Master's courses.
Most of all, the powers they have which resemble the powers of the judicial system in any way need to be taken away. Universities are not courts of law, they do not have the accountability, moral fiber, or training to do law properly, and any incident which requires the intervention of a court should be handled by an actual court of law.
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I don't see how universities have more power over their employees than any other employer. They can fire (and sort of blackball) an employee, but so can any other employer.
Students, on the other hand, lose an insane investment if they get kicked out. So I agree there.
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