A leading "misinformation" researcher is accusing her former employer at Harvard University of firing her to please Facebook's parent company, Meta.

Joan Donovan, an assistant professor at the College of Communication at Boston University, argued in a filing with the Education Department and Massachusetts attorney general that Harvard decided to fire her after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged to provide $500 million to the university's artificial intelligence research group. Donovan previously served at Harvard as a research director at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy with a focus on political misinformation. There, she was a strong critic of online misinformation in the 2020 election and is considered by some on the political Right to be an advocate for censoring political speech.

"There are a handful of tried and true means to coerce someone or some entity to do something they would not otherwise do, and influence through financial compensation is at or near the top of the list," the filing says. "Objectively, $500 million is certainly a significant financial influence."

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Donovan was a public face for the initiative to combat misinformation for years. She received millions of dollars in grants, appeared multiple times on television, and testified before Congress on the threat of misinformation.

Donovan's conflicts with Harvard began in October 2021 when she acquired copies of the Facebook Papers, documents from the company released by whistleblower Frances Haugen revealing the company's knowledge of how its technology affected teenagers. She presented the importance of these documents to several Harvard donors, including former Facebook communications executive Elliot Schrage, the filing claims. The former executive pushed back on Donovan, alleging she did not understand the papers. Ten days later, a Harvard school dean emailed Donovan with pointed inquiries about her research. This turned into a back-and-forth between Donovan and the dean, eventually escalating into the university winding down her project in 2022 and eliminating her role within the center in February 2023.

Leadership at Harvard "were inappropriately influenced by Meta/Facebook," Donovan claims in her filing. "A significant conflict of interest arising from funding and personal relationships has created a pervasive culture at [Harvard Kennedy School] of operating in the best interest of Facebook/Meta at the expense of academic freedom and Harvard's own stated mission."

Harvard disputes Donovan's claims, according to the Washington Post. The university alleged that Donovan was a staff employee and could not find her a faculty sponsor to oversee her work, as required by university policy. It also denied firing her, claiming she was "offered the chance to continue as a part-time adjunct lecturer, and she chose not to do so."

Donovan's filing was sent at the same time that researchers focusing on social media and political content are facing additional scrutiny from the GOP. America First Legal, a foundation founded by former Trump official Stephen Miller, has sued multiple academic and independent researchers. Republican-controlled committees in the House have also subpoenaed researcher records to see if they had worked with federal agencies to encourage Big Tech to censor speech.

This pressure has also led to several universities cutting back on their research into misinformation, alleging that they were paying high legal costs.

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Harvard has a close relationship with Zuckerberg, one of its best-known graduates. Zuckerberg and his former chief operations officer, Sheryl Sandberg, were Harvard undergraduates. Zuckerberg provided the $500 million in donations as part of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic endeavor operated by the CEO and his wife, Priscilla Chan.