Author: Ellie Kincaid

A professor at the University of Pittsburgh who sued the institution for racial discrimination and retaliation has refiled his suit after a federal judge dismissed his claims. 

As we’ve previously reported, Moses Bility, an assistant professor of infectious diseases and microbiology in the university’s School of Public Health, sued the school earlier this year. 

Among many claims of racial discrimination, Bility alleged the school’s response to a 2020 paper he published and later withdrew that proposed jade amulets may prevent COVID-19 was discriminatory. (In the process of our previous reporting on the article, Bility accused Retraction Watch of racism.) 

According to Bility’s complaint, Pitt officials demanded an investigation of his research, which found he “did not violate any academic integrity standard.” However, at a departmental town hall meeting over Zoom, presenting the investigation’s findings, “students in Defendant Pitt’s School of Public Health called Dr. Bility derogatory names, such as stupid, retarded, unintelligent, etc.” Bility later received two emails “from anonymous individuals who Dr. Bility assumes came from the Defendant Pitt community” that included racial slurs.  

A public health journal intends to retract an article that estimated how many unintentional pesticide poisonings happen each year worldwide, Retraction Watch has learned. 

In response, the authors hired a lawyer to represent them in contesting the retraction, and maintain the journal’s decision “undermines the integrity of the scientific process.” This is the second time within a few months that the journal retracted an article through a process authors said was problematic.