The Florida State University professor abruptly quits his $190,000-a-year role after being accused of falsifying data to make racism appear more common and retracting six of his papers.
- Professor Eric Stewart has disappeared from his position at Florida State University
- Since 2006 he has been accused on a number of occasions of falsifying data
- In 2020, a committee met again to launch an investigation into his misconduct
A Florida State University criminology professor abruptly quits his $190,000-a-year job after being accused of falsifying data to make racism seem more common than it is.
Professor Eric Stewart had six of his studies – one dating back to 2006 – retracted amid allegations that he fabricated the data by changing sample sizes.
Stewart denied such criticism, but after his sixth incident in 2020, the FSU committee met again to address his record and results.
Since last month, he has been absent from Florida State University, perhaps marking the end of his 16-year career at the school and the years-long investigation into his academic malpractice, Florida standard mentioned.
Professor Eric Stewart (pictured) has been accused of altering his data and retracting six studies, by Florida standards
Stewart had a $190,000-a-year position at FSU but disappeared unexpectedly last month after being there for 16 years, it was reported.
In 2011, Stewart co-authored a study that purported to prove that as the Black and Hispanic population grew, the public increasingly demanded longer sentences for Black and Hispanic offenders.
The aim of the study was to test whether the public held biased views towards minorities and whether this affected judgments.
Stewart was finally called upon by a colleague, Justin Pickett, another University of Albany criminologist with whom he co-authored the paper.
Beckett points out that the original, untampered data showed no relationship between the growth of minority groups and the severity of their criminal sentences.
He published his own paper citing issues in their paper, some of which he said were submitted just prior to publication.
“The data was also altered—intentionally or unintentionally—in other ways, and these alterations produced the main findings of the article,” Beckett wrote.
Among other inaccuracies, he points out that in their article their study was claimed to have been based on 1,184 respondents, but there were actually only 500. Data was also selected from 91 counties rather than including the entire 326.
Stewart was finally called out by a peer, Justin Pickett (pictured), another University of Albany criminologist with whom he co-authored the paper.
Beckett noted that in their article their study was claimed to have been based on 1,184 participants, but in reality there were only 500.
There is one possible conclusion from the re-analysis of the data I have: the sample was not only replicated in the analysis of the published article; The data was also altered, either intentionally or unintentionally, and these alterations produced the main findings of the article,” Beckett writes.
He said that when he brought the cases to Stewart’s attention and asked for specific data, he was ignored for four months, the Florida Standard reported.
Four more articles, co-authored by Stewart between 2006 and 2015, were later retracted, and eventually Florida State University agreed to an investigation led by a three-person panel. The Standard notes that two of those three are co-authors of the papers.
Stewart told officials that Beckett’s allegations “destroyed me and my academic character” and said that was especially significant given that five of his six studies were related to race, and that Stewart himself was black.
The committee decided not to take action, but in 2020 a new controversy arose involving Stewart involving a sixth paper.
There is a huge financial incentive for data fraud and no accountability. If you do that, the probability of getting caught is very low,” Beckett told the Florida Standard.
“There is a lot of incentive to fake data and very little oversight.”
