A Massachusetts federal judge has dismissed a high-profile defamation lawsuit against a trio of business school professors who investigate data fraud and publish their findings a blog called “Data Colada.” The professors — Joseph Simmons, Leif Nelson, and Uri Simonsohn — were represented by Prince Lobel partner Jeffrey Pyle.
In 2021, the professors uncovered data anomalies in four studies co-authored by Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino. They reported their findings to Harvard, which, after an 18-month investigation, concluded their concerns were valid and put Gino on administrative leave. The trio then published their findings in four posts on the Data Colada blog. Gino sued the professors for libel, alleging that their conclusions were incorrect and had harmed her reputation.
On September 11, 2024, Judge Myong Joun dismissed all counts against the Data Colada defendants. He held that the First Amendment protected their writings because the professors had disclosed the factual basis for their opinion that data fraud was present in the studies, and invited readers to draw their own conclusions. More broadly, the court held that “matters of academic and scientific debate” should not be the subject of defamation lawsuits.
An article about the case, including an account of a hearing at which Pyle argued on Data Colada’s behalf, appears today on the website of The New Yorker.