Florida State professor falsified data for studies on systemic racism

Eric Stewart, professor of criminology at Florida State University, has been accused of falsifying data for studies in which he pushed the narrative that racism is systemic. It was known that at least six of Stewart's articles published in major academic journals such as Criminology and Law and Society Review from 2003 to 2019 have been retracted.

"The academic was fired after almost 20 years of his data — including figures used in an explosive study, which claimed the legacy of lynchings made whites perceive blacks as criminals, and that the problem was worse among conservatives — were found to be in question," the New York Post said.

In July, Stewart received a letter in which Florida State University President James Clark notified him of his dismissal after 16 years at the university.

"You demonstrated extreme negligence in basic data management, resulting in an unprecedented number of articles retracted, numerous other articles now in question, with the presence of no backup of the data for the publications in question. The damage to the standing of the University and, in particular, the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice and its faculty approaches the catastrophic," Clark explained in the letter.

James Clark to Eric Stewart by Williams Perdomo on Scribd

"Numerous erroneous and false narratives"

Clark said the decision to fire Stewart came after a panel reviewed the allegations against him. He said that it was finally proven that much of the data expressed in the studies was not real.

"Because of your actions, as you were fully responsible for the integrity of the results generated in your data analyses, decades of research that were once thought to be at the forefront of the Criminology discipline, have been shown to contain numerous erroneous and false narratives," Clark said.

Two of the studies published by Stewart and reviewed by the New York Post claimed that white people saw black citizens as a threat. He also suggested in another study that Americans wanted harsher sentences for Latinos because their community was increasing in size and becoming more economically successful.

Finally, it was learned that the professor received at least $3.5 million in grants from major organizations and entities funded by taxpayers. That information was verified by the New York Post on the official website containing Stewart's resume. However, once the information was published, the website was taken down.