Moonlighting witnesses should resign their posts

Opinion Dean Richard Schmalensee of the MIT Sloan School of Management, best known for his 1978 article on the ready-to-eat breakfast cereal industry, has abused his academic position by spending far too much time as a consultant, against the interest of students at MIT. He also brings discredit on MIT for acting as a mercenary for Microsoft. He has proved many times that he has insufficient knowledge to be dubbed an expert, and under cross-examination by David Boies it has been seen that his opinions are based on his desire to please his paymaster. He has brought antitrust economics into disrepute (if that is possible), and put it on the same plane as astrology, so far as his opinions are concerned, and appears to have used numerology rather than statistics to support a data set that does not stand up to examination. His teaching duties towards students, and his leadership of his school, must have suffered as a result of the considerable time he spends on his own consultancy work, for Microsoft and other clients. He is retained by Microsoft not just for the case brought by the DoJ, but also for Caldera v Microsoft and other Microsoft cases. If MIT believes it is a progressive academic institution, and if it does not wish to prohibit private consultancy, the time has come for it to franchise its academic posts and to make the incumbent's pay for the their job titles. Antitrust mercenaries - and Professor Franklin Fisher is another - should resign their academic positions and see how they manage to fare in a real world, where experts are really experts. ® Complete Register Trial coverage