On: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowin...

[cbsmith]

Fair, but it raises the question of the motives behind it. It would seem they didn't necessarily have a problem with the research, but rather with the lead researcher. There's complicated issues of academic freedom to parse here, but in principle, if you aren't happy with the work someone is doing, it's not entirely unreasonable that you'd let them go and have someone else pick up the work.

[cortesoft → cbsmith]

> It would seem they didn't necessarily have a problem with the research, but rather with the lead researcher

This is the entire crux of the issue; do they have a problem with the lead researcher because she isn't good at her job or because she is finding things that their large donor doesn't like?

[cbsmith → cortesoft]

Exactly. It's easy to presume one interpretation, but it's far from clear.

[ImPostingOnHN → cbsmith]

Exactly. The evidence* points to the act being corrupt, but the university is free to attempt to convince people otherwise.

* - The researcher being removed without any good cause evident

[gcr → cbsmith]

Universities don't work that way. There's generally very little oversight over the PI of projects. The university generally wants more projects leading to more publications and grants, not less. Administrators understand that removing a PI generally means abandoning their lab's projects, so it usually doesn't happen.

[cbsmith → gcr]

Usually being the operative word.