Bowdoin Punishes Professor who provoked

by E Wayne Ross on April 24, 2009

Inside Higher Ed: Bowdoin Punishes Professor who provoked

The president of Bowdoin College has endorsed a faculty committee’s finding that an economist engaged in misconduct in research — research that he continues to maintain the college examined only because it made Bowdoin look bad.

The complicated and contested history of Jonathan P. Goldstein’s dispute with Bowdoin was examined in an article on Inside Higher Ed two weeks ago. The gist of it is that Goldstein wrote a scholarly article that, he said, showed that Bowdoin overemphasized athletics; ran afoul of the college’s dean and other administrators when he sought to distribute it to parents and prospective students (interrupting college tours and intimidating a student employee, Bowdoin officials charged); and became the subject of a series of accusations and campus investigations.