MONTREAL — Joan Donovan’s 248-page, exhibit-laden whistleblower complaint against Harvard University is near-granular in its description of her five-year ordeal at what is arguably the world’s most prestigious university. Fundamentally, though, the story Donovan tells is one of Big Tech money undermining academic integrity, the end result of which saw her forced out of her positions by an administration she says was beholden to a company founded and run by one notable Harvard dropout: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Donovan, followers of media news may recall, is the social science academic who helped pioneer research into disinformation and media manipulation during her time at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). Her departure from the school in February came as a surprise to many who felt she brought much-needed attention to her field, but until now Donovan had not publicly discussed the circumstances of her break with the Ivy League institution. 

On Monday, though, she made her version of events known in the form of the complaint, which is addressed to Harvard University’s president, Claudine Gay; its vice-president and general counsel, Diane Lopez; and U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. The complaint, which was reported Monday by The Washington Post, calls on all three to conduct an investigation into HKS, and take “corrective action” to protect academic integrity. The Logic independently obtained a copy of the document.

It alleges that “in order to protect the interests of high-value donors with obvious and direct ties to Meta/Facebook, Kennedy School leadership began to target Dr. Donovan’s team, their work, and her personally in an effort to diminish—if not destroy—their research and public engagement.” During this period, Donovan’s complaint alleges, former Meta head of public policy for Canada Kevin Chan audited her class on the company’s behalf. 

To assemble her evidence, Donovan obtained the help of Whistleblower Aid, the same Washington, D.C.-based organization behind Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. This is no coincidence. Haugen and her trove of internal Facebook documents loom large in Donovan’s Harvard narrative.

While Haugen’s documents showed the extent to which Meta knew its products were globally problematic on issues like misinformation and human trafficking, Donovan’s account focuses on what happened when she tried to post those documents for the world to see, via Harvard’s own website. She said she lost access to funding, was prevented from hiring staff and suffered through a smear campaign at the hands of Harvard administrators. “From that very day forward, I was treated differently by the university to the point where I lost my job,” Donovan recently told The Logic in Montreal.

In an email to The Logic, Harvard Kennedy School rejected Donovan’s claims, denying that her departure was linked to Meta, or that she was fired.

“The narrative is full of inaccuracies and baseless insinuations, particularly the suggestion that Harvard Kennedy School allowed Facebook to dictate its approach to research,” HKS spokesperson James Smith told The Logic by email. Rather, Smith wrote, Donovan’s project wound down because HKS could not find a faculty member to oversee its work. “By policy and in practice, donors have no influence over this or other work,” the email added.

The Logic has also reached out to Harvard’s administration for comment.

Donovan joined the university in 2018 as director of the Kennedy School’s Technology and Social Change Research Project. It was a zeitgeist-y move, appointing one of the best-known disinformation and online extremism experts in the midst of Donald Trump’s truth-bending tenure at the White House. About two years later, she was promoted to research director of the Shorenstein Center, a research body with HKS. “Her critical work is having tremendous impact and has lifted the prestige of the Shorenstein Center as well as Harvard Kennedy School,” wrote her manager, Laura Manley, in 2020.

The favourable outlook changed, Donovan said, when she acquired the “Facebook Papers.” Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook’s civic integrity team, spirited some 22,000 pages of internal documents from the company when she left in May 2021. Donovan called them the “most important documents in internet history,” and last July began the “Facebook Archive,” a project to make Haugen’s documents publicly accessible on Harvard’s website.

Earlier this year, Semafor journalists Ben Smith and Louise Matsakis wrote about the immediate fallout from Donovan’s decision. According to the publication, Elliot Schrage, a former Facebook head of communications who left the company in 2018, “aggressively challenged the premise of Donovan’s work” and “delivered Facebook’s perspective that the platform should not be the arbiter of truth” during an October 2021 meeting of the dean’s council, an advisory committee to the Harvard Kennedy School. In an email to The Logic late last week, Schrage called the story’s characterizations “inaccurate and misleading,” but did not elaborate on his criticism.

Nine days after the meeting, Donovan received an email from Kennedy School dean Douglas Elmendorf, reproduced in the whistleblower report, in which he peppered her with questions regarding her research methods. How do you define the problem of misinformation, Elmendorf asked, “when there is no independent arbiter of truth (in this country or others) and Constitutional protections of speech (in some countries)?” In the complaint, Donovan notes that “arbiter of truth” is a term Zuckerberg has used in the past.

She also believes the insular nature of elite institutions, where power and influence congregate, came into play. Through their charity foundation, Zuckerberg and his Harvard alumni wife Priscilla Chan have donated more than US$542 million to the university, including a $500-million pledge to its Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence. “The money comes in over 15 years, so [Harvard] needs to be in Facebook’s or Zuckerberg’s good graces,” Donovan told The Logic.

Elmendorf was an undergraduate adviser to Sheryl Sandberg, who went on to serve as Facebook’s chief operating officer. He also attended Sandberg’s 2022 wedding, according to the complaint, which includes a picture published in People magazine of Sandberg and her new husband. In the background is a smiling Elmendorf, according to the complaint.

“I believe because of [Elmendorf’s] personal relationship with executives at Facebook and the amount of money that was on the line when I got the Haugen documents, that I became a target for Facebook via the dean,” Donovan told The Logic. In an email, Meta Canada spokesperson Lisa Laventure declined to comment. 

Meta executive Kevin Chan also makes an appearance in Donovan’s complaint. Documents supporting the complaint say that a “senior Facebook executive” was given permission to audit Donovan’s class in September 2020. Though the executive in question isn’t named, he is identified as Head of Public Policy, Canada—Chan’s title at the time. The whistleblower complaint says Donovan “has come to the conclusion that based on his behavior, that individual was also there to monitor her class on Facebook’s behalf.” 

Chan, who is now Meta’s senior director of global policy campaign strategies, confirmed to The Logic that he audited Donovan’s class, saying he did so as a Harvard fellow. “The fellowship is given on individual merit. It is somewhat disturbing that we can go from an honour to questions of suspicion so quickly,” he wrote in an email, before signing off with a smile emoji.

Donovan said things took a turn for the worse as she pursued the Facebook Archive project. Elmendorf prohibited her from hiring new people and fundraising, says the complaint, which reproduces an email from him to support the allegation. Donovan said her name was taken off the Facebook Archive project. 

In an email to Harvard’s human resources department, Donovan said her supervisor referred to her as a “liar” to another Harvard employee and otherwise created a “toxic situation” for her and her team. 

The complaint also reprises a conversation in which Elmendorf allegedly reminded Donovan that, as a staff lecturer, she did not have the same protections as faculty. “I want you to know that you do not have academic freedom,” it quotes him as saying. 

The Logic has reached out to Elmendorf for comment. He declined to comment to the Post.

Donovan left Harvard in August for an assistant professor role at Boston University. The position is tenure track, which affords her more protection than her previous gig. 

When asked by The Logic what the experience at Harvard taught her, she said: “The university’s job is to tell the truth. Corporations’ job is to make profit. And those two things get very confused quickly, when companies are relying on universities to bring them prestige, benefits and accolades of what it means to do the university research.” 

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to replace response from the Harvard Kennedy School that was reported elsewhere with response provided directly to The Logic.