Published 8 February 2023 at 14.54
Domestic. Adrian Mehic, who in a study showed that good-looking women get better grades, was reported to ethics by Lund University after a feminist media drive. Now he is cleared of all accusations of not having followed good research practice and reports the university himself to JO, reports Skånska Dagbladet.
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Fria Tider reported at the end of October on PhD student Adrian Mehic's study of distance education during the pandemic.
He was able to show that female students who were judged by others to be attractive received lower grades when they were not in place in the teaching hall. At the same time, the male students' study results remained unchanged.
The study led to Mehic having to run street races in the media and received harsh feminist criticism. He did not receive any support from his university, Lund University, but instead the university reported him for “deviation from good research practice”.
The way in which the university handled the report was heavily criticized by Academic Rights Watch in November.
Now the national Appeals Board for Ethics Review (Önep) has completely dropped the report against Adrian Mehic. The committee does not consider that any ethical violations were committed in the study.
Adrian Mehic has filed a report with the Ombudsman against both Lund University and several people within the committee. He believes that he should have been allowed to speak before the case was forwarded to the national committee.
– They should have let me speak, but they ignored that. There have been a lot of other formal errors in the handling . It is problematic how Lund University has acted, says Adrian Mehic to Skånska Dagbladet.
Mehic has also experienced that leading people within Lund University have wanted to bring him down all along. He has received offers of research positions at other universities and does not rule out continuing to investigate the relationship between beauty and judgment in the future.