Academic scandal

An academic scandal is widely-publicized incident or story that exposes, or purports to expose, the unethical, fraudulent, or erroneous work of a professor, researcher, or senior administrator, or which otherwise brings academia (or a particular institution or branch of academia) into disrepute. Academic scandal is related to journalistic fraud. See also the narrower notion Scientific misconduct.

 List of academic scandals
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

    * False verifications
          o Verification of the James Ossuary by the Geological Survey of Israel (GSI) and Andre Lemair of Sorbonne University
          o The verification of the authenticity of the Hitler Diaries by Hugh Trevor-Roper
    * Corporate involvement in academia
          o Nancy Olivieri/Apotex scandal
          o Cases involving refusal of data or ghostwriting by corporate sponsor: Blumsohn Case/P&G Kahn/Immune Response Inc Sheffield Actonel Affair
          o Cases involving suppression of publication by corporate sponsor: Dong/Boots Pharmaceuticals

    * Academic fraud
          o Gideon Koren - allegations of fraud against Gideon Koren were dismissed by the College of Physicians as inflammatory. He was reprimanded for misconduct after admitting he was the author of anonymous letters (CBC Report 1999) directed at other doctors at the hospital with regard to the controversial Olivieri/Apotex scandal.(Maclean's 2005)
          o Jon Sudbø - fabricated data in cancer research
          o Michael Bellesiles forced to resign from Emory University for fabrication and academic fraud in a book he authored.
          o Fujimura Shinichi - faked archaeological finds in Japan
          o Ward Churchill - was fired from the University of Colorado for "plagiarism, falsification and other misconduct".
          o Piltdown Man - fake composite hominid skull, hoaxer is still unknown
          o Martin Luther King Jr. plagiarism in doctoral thesis
          o Jan Hendrik Schön
          o Luk Van Parijs
          o Victor Ninov
          o Hwang Woo-Suk - fabricated data in stem-cell research
          o Ian Wilmut - admitted, under oath, 10 years after the birth of Dolly the Sheep that he was not her creator
          o Gerald Schatten authorship on a high profile publication without contributing any scientific input, misappropriation of human eggs
          o Sir Cyril Burt's twin study research
          o Morton Smith's Secret Gospel
          o Zed Zorichak, Lecturer University of Wales Lampeter acredited with the 'plagiarism game' as he delberately falsified plagiarism results using EVE software as retribution against students who had complained about his unprofessional conduct. He brought the strategy by UK Universities against student plagiarism into disrepute.
    * Academic experiments with ethical issues
          o Stanford Prison Experiment
          o Little Albert
          o Milgram experiment
    * Academic freedom
          o Biscuit Fire publication controversy
    * Misrepresentation of qualifications / 'Diploma mill' degrees
          o Marilee Jones, MIT dean admitted lying about her degrees.
          o Barry McSweeney, Irish government science adviser resigns after claims over a dubious PhD.
    * Other
          o The Sokal Affair
          o The Bogdanov Affair
          o The Orr Case
          o J. Michael Bailey see The Man Who Would Be Queen and bisexual erasure
          o Inflation of first year MPharm exam results by De Montfort University academics in 2004
          o E.J. Corey - Graduate Student Suicide Rate

 
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