For the first time in nearly 80 years, Harvard University has taken the extraordinary step of revoking the tenure of a faculty member—Francesca Gino, a former professor at Harvard Business School (HBS) known for her widely publicized research on ethics, decision-making, and organizational behavior. The irony of her downfall—accused of academic dishonesty while researching honesty—has been noted by nearly every outlet covering the story. But a deeper question lingers: What does Gino’s story tell us about Harvard Business School and the neoliberal system it both serves and symbolizes?
Ethics as Performance in a Neoliberal Order
Gino, once celebrated for championing ethical behavior and "rebel talent," now stands accused of falsifying data in multiple academic papers. But HBS’s brand of ethics—delivered through expensive executive programs and best-selling books—is part of a larger performance in which corporate elites are taught to appear virtuous while perpetuating systems that concentrate wealth, exploit labor, and externalize harm.
In this context, ethics becomes less about justice or truth and more about managing perceptions. The fall of Francesca Gino is dramatic, but the real ethical crisis lies not in her alleged misconduct alone—it lies in the institutional contradictions embedded within HBS itself. Harvard Business School doesn’t just teach capitalism; it molds the gatekeepers of global capital. Its mission is not merely to educate but to replicate and legitimize a system that increasingly rewards the few at the expense of the many.
HBS: The Training Ground for Economic Power
From Wall Street executives to Silicon Valley disruptors, the alumni of Harvard Business School include some of the most powerful figures in global finance and industry—many of whom have presided over layoffs, environmental degradation, and financial schemes with far more damaging consequences than academic fraud.
The school’s ethos is rooted in neoliberal values: deregulation, privatization, shareholder primacy, and labor "flexibility." These principles have driven inequality to historic levels, eroded public trust in institutions, and created a permanent underclass of precarious workers—including the adjuncts and support staff who toil in the shadows of Harvard's gilded brand.
That Gino was one of Harvard’s highest paid employees, earning over $1 million a year, underscores the commercialization of academia. Her high-profile persona, media presence, and prolific publication record made her not just a scholar but a product—one the institution proudly marketed until it became inconvenient.
The Politics of Academic Accountability
The revocation of Gino’s tenure has been portrayed as a triumph of academic accountability. But it also reveals the selective nature of institutional justice. While Harvard moved swiftly to investigate and sanction Gino, other faculty members in elite institutions—some with clear ties to ethically questionable industries or discriminatory practices—remain unscathed, protected by the very power structures they serve.
Moreover, this case unfolds against a broader political backdrop in which Harvard, like other elite universities, is entangled in legal and ideological battles with the federal government. From fights over DEI initiatives and student visas to federal funding for research, the university’s moral posturing often masks a pragmatic calculus: preserving its endowment, its influence, and its brand.
A System that Rewards Deception
That Harvard Business School fostered—and then disowned—a figure like Francesca Gino should surprise no one. The institution’s most infamous alumni include architects of the 2008 financial crisis and leaders of corporations known for tax evasion, union busting, and regulatory capture. In such a system, the real problem isn’t dishonesty—it’s getting caught.
Gino’s downfall may satisfy the university’s need for a scapegoat, but it doesn't address the deeper malaise at the heart of elite business education. Harvard Business School produces managers, not moral leaders. It shapes ideologies, not communities. And in doing so, it offers up a sanitized vision of capitalism in which individual ethics can redeem systemic violence.
Conclusion: The Theatre of Respectability
Francesca Gino’s tenure revocation is a symbolic gesture—one that reinforces the illusion that elite institutions police themselves rigorously. But the real fraud is more abstract and far more consequential: it is the fraud of presenting institutions like Harvard Business School as guardians of ethical capitalism, while they actively reinforce the economic logic of exploitation.
In a just world, the moral bankruptcy of neoliberalism would be exposed not by a professor’s faked data, but by the suffering of workers laid off for shareholder gains, the communities displaced for private equity ventures, and the global inequities entrenched by the very graduates these schools send into the world.
Until then, we are left with what Gino herself once studied: the subtle science of dishonesty. Only now, the lab is Harvard—and the experiment is ongoing.
The Higher Education Inquirer continues to investigate the contradictions and inequalities embedded in American higher education, especially as they relate to labor, class, and power. Follow us for more independent, critical analysis.
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