Press pause and catch up on the week’s biggest stories. Delivered on Saturdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, sign up to receive it in your email inbox.
Subject: Weekly Briefing: Stanford's president steps down over research-misconduct accusations
A president steps down over research-misconduct accusations
Carolyn Fong, Redux
(Fernanda is off this week; I’m Heidi Landecker, writing in her place.)
Gotta love those student journalists. These hard-working unsung reporters are finally having their day, thanks to a team at The Stanford Daily, whose months of reporting led this week to the resignation of President Marc Tessier-Lavigne of Stanford University.
Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for less than $10/month.
Don’t have an account? Sign up now.
A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.
If you need assistance, please contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com.
A president steps down over research-misconduct accusations
Carolyn Fong, Redux
(Fernanda is off this week; I’m Heidi Landecker, writing in her place.)
Gotta love those student journalists. These hard-working unsung reporters are finally having their day, thanks to a team at The Stanford Daily, whose months of reporting led this week to the resignation of President Marc Tessier-Lavigne of Stanford University.
The Daily first drew attention to alleged image manipulation on papers co-written by Tessier-Lavigne, a neuroscientist who studies Alzheimer’s disease; the newspaper then raised questions about the president’s response to the allegations.
In November 2022, the Dailyreported on concerns from scientists about certain images in several of Tessier-Lavigne’s papers from the early 2000s. “A prominent research journal has confirmed to the Daily that it is reviewing a paper co-authored by University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne for scientific misconduct following public allegations that the research contains multiple altered images,” Theo Baker, a freshman, wrote.
Questions about photos of the results of Tessier-Lavigne’s experiments first began appearing online in 2015, when the scientist was president of Rockefeller University, in New York. He became president of Stanford in 2016.
After the Daily article appeared, Stanford’s Board of Trustees appointed a special committee and hired a law firm to review the concerns.
The president responded to the Daily with a letter to the faculty in December 2022. “The specific images that are being queried are from collaborators’ laboratories,” he wrote, adding that he took “responsibility for any concerns that arise with respect to any work with which I have been involved.” He took an unusual approach, vocally defending his actions, criticizing the student newspaper, and casting himself as a faculty member first and president second.
Tessier-Lavigne’s resignation, on Wednesday, came two days after the special committee released the results of its investigation. When the scientist learned about the problems in his papers, he didn’t always seek to correct them quickly and persistently, the investigative panel wrote. Senior scientists need to “demonstrate an appropriate appetite” for correcting the scientific record, the report says, or the self-correcting mechanisms of science will fail from within.
The president will step down on August 31 and become a member of the biology faculty, with tenure.
Baker, the student reporter who led the investigation and is now a rising sophomore, won a prestigious Polk Award for his stories.
Watch. Rough Diamonds is a TV series about the return of a prodigal child to his Orthodox Jewish family, diamond merchants in Amsterdam. Disobedience is a movie about the return of a prodigal child to her Orthodox Jewish family, rabbis in London. Spoiler: A patriarch dies in both. Otherwise, they’re completely different. (Netflix)
Feeling blue?Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, the comedian’s take on the Kardashians, his mother, and Will Smith can only help. (Netflix)
