I haven’t been posting much over the past couple of weeks… because I had a baby!
I’m going to keep the family photos private, but we are overjoyed and both Mom and baby are healthy and happy. Fatherhood is already changing my priorities and, I suspect, will eventually change my writing. I can already feel myself becoming a little more grounded/mature/wiser. For those who have been subscribed to my Substack since I launched it 5 years ago, you have basically watched me grow up from unrooted, unhinged nomad to respectable family man.
Due to diaper duties I’ve gone from spending 10+ hours a day on the internet to barely 10 minutes some days, so please bear with me while I figure out how to be productive again.
That said, I haven’t stopped working. I have a few bigger investigations developing behind the scenes, and I expect to publish some major new scoops soon.
In the meantime, today’s article is a roundup of stories that caught my attention but didn’t quite warrant full articles of their own.
#1: Former Journal of Marketing Editor Backs My Critique of Two Journal of Marketing Papers: “The Fatal Flaws in the Research Are Apparent”
My latest article is performing well, with 15k views on YouTube in the first week:
Today’s update: that investigation was turned into a LinkedIn newsletter by Professor Koen Pauwels, who has served as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Marketing.
That matters because, as you may recall, two of the papers I scrutinized were published in the Journal of Marketing and could now face retraction.
It is therefore a great boon to my argument that a scholar who served in an editorial role at that very journal is now publicly circulating my findings and describing the flaws in the research as “fatal.”
He concludes:
“The fatal flaws in the research are apparent … The social sciences have spent the last decade reckoning with replication failures in psychology and, more recently, business research. This case is a useful, uncomfortable test of whether marketing academia holds its own influential work to the same standard it now expects everywhere else.”
Several other professors chimed in in the comments section, e.g.:
#2: Department of War Orders Research Security Audits at 30 Academic Institutions
On August 17, the Department of War announced that it had ordered research-security audits at 30 American universities, including Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Georgetown, Duke, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, NYU, and UCLA.
The audits are aimed at determining whether universities receiving federal defense funding are adequately protecting sensitive research from foreign interference (read: China), improper technology transfer (read: China), and other research-security risks (read: China).
#3: UT Austin quietly cuts ethnic, gender studies majors
Future students can no longer major in Women’s, Sexualities & Gender studies; Mexican American & Latina/o studies; African & African Diaspora studies as of fall 2027
#4: Revolt at GEB
Games and Economic Behavior is the top Game Theory journal in the world.
Last month Elsevier declined to renew the editor-in-chief’s contract.
All six other editors then resigned, followed by 58 of the 62 advisory editors.
Elsevier’s stated reason: “moving towards a closer alignment with Elsevier strategic priorities and publishing policies.”
If you know the inside story here, I feel like some details are missing, email me: chrisbrunet@protonmail.com
#5: EJMR Lawsuit
I found an old lawsuit that nobody else ever found.
The plaintiff was Dr. Douglas Cumming, then a professor at Florida Atlantic University and now at Stevens Institute of Technology. He sued several anonymous EJMR posters for libel and defamation after they accused him of corruption.
The problem was that he could not identify the Anonymous posters.
The case was eventually dismissed for that reason.
#6: Nathan Cofnas Takes a Victory Lap
Following my Arday/Cofnas coverage, Cofnas gave an absolutely hilarious and very autistic interview to Belgian state TV:
He then reached a deal with the Embassy to remain employed:
#7: Chile Goes Woke
The Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María (@usantamaria) is hiring a professor of Mathematics… “Women Applicants Only”:
“This position is part of a special recruitment initiative aimed at increasing the participation of women. Applications are therefore invited exclusively from women candidates.”
#8: Bill Ackman Creates $1 Million Prize
Bill Ackman has launched a $1 million prize for academic truth-telling: the Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage.
“The prize awards $1 million each to as many as five social scientists a year who have demonstrated intellectual independence, published findings that were attacked rather than answered, and been validated by the evidence—despite the professional cost. The selection criteria are designed to distinguish courage from contrarianism: Nominees must show a sustained commitment to following logic and evidence regardless of pressure, a willingness to ask questions others avoid, and work that has shifted academic debate, public discourse or policy—often despite being misread, mischaracterized or vilified at the time of publication.”
This is a bit rich coming from Ackman. He is currently bankrolling Francesca Gino’s lawsuit against Data Colada, the researchers who documented data manipulation in her work and who, by his own criteria, look like stronger candidates for the prize.
#9: Francesca Gino tells her side of the story
Francesca Gino just gave her first major interview since Harvard revoked her tenure:
I confess I did not watch all 39 minutes, but the comments are overwhelmingly negative.
Her lawsuit is still ongoing.
The case is currently headed toward a trial scheduled for December.
#10: 1 in 12 Yale law grads get jobs as law professors
New law-school hiring data is out. 8.6% of Yale Law graduates became law professors. No other law school is even close. Stanford comes in second at just 2.6%, followed by Harvard at 2.0%, Chicago at 1.9%, and NYU at 1.5%.
In other words, a Yale Law graduate was more than three times as likely as a Stanford graduate and more than four times as likely as a Harvard graduate to end up in the legal academy.
#11: Journal Editorial Defending “Academic Freedom” Contains at Least Nine Fake References
In May, the coeditors of the Journal of Higher and Further Education, Anastasia Christou and Steve Lambert, along with deputy editor Rosalind Latiner Raby, published an editorial defending academic freedom and social-justice research.
There was just one problem: at least nine of the editorial’s 31 references are either nonexistent or contain false information, including fake articles, incorrect journal names, and scholars being credited with papers they never wrote.
#12: Entire Editorial Board Quits After French Academic Journal Is Sold to China-Based Publisher
Another journal revolt.
All 15 editors of the French academic journal Revue de l’Organisation Responsable resigned after learning that its publishing and distribution rights had been transferred to CNBesting, an editing and publishing company with an address in Hangzhou, China.
The editors said they were informed only after CNBesting had already taken control of the journal.
Then came another surprise: the new publisher introduced a €1,350 publication fee. Previously, authors could publish in the journal for free.
The editors resigned en masse, saying they could no longer guarantee the journal’s “scientific and editorial integrity.”
#13: Harvard Is Selling AI Clones of Its Professors
The professors volunteered to be cloned, and Harvard worked with AI-avatar company HeyGen to create their digital counterparts.
#14: Vanderbilt Opens Campus in NYC
And apparently this is only the beginning.
Vanderbilt is already planning another academic campus in San Francisco in 2027, pending regulatory approval.
#15: UChicago Is Becoming a Sausage Fest
This chart went viral last week:
The University of Chicago’s incoming classes have become dramatically more male. 58% of the Class of 2029 is male and just 42% is female, up from a nearly even 52–48 split only four years earlier.
The UT one might be less a scandal than a response to state mandates to do away with gender studies and related programs.