Other resources you might want to check out:
Djokovic, D. & Souitaris, V. (2008). Spinouts from academic institutions: A literature review with suggestions for further research. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 33(3), 225–247. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-006-9000-4
Knight, C. (2022, Jul 26). The curious case of Joy Laskar. Medium. https://medium.com/@charlesdknight1/the-curious-case-of-joy-laskar-bac6b1b38724
In 2013, New York Times technology writer Nick Wingfield published Reaching for Silicon Valley, a story about Georgia Tech professor and inventor Dr. Joy Laskar’s rise and fall in academia. I find Wingfield’s article most interesting because it lays out the tension between academic bureaucracy and the entrepreneurship that most universities say they want to cultivate and have come to depend on financially.
The story of Dr. Laskar does not present easy answers, and Dr. Laskar himself is not the traditional underdog. But when the evidence, or lack thereof, is examined, Georgia Tech comes out on the wrong side of the of the tight-rope line that universities and entrepreneurial professors try to walk to stay relevant in technology.
Background
By any reasonable measure, Dr. Laskar was the kind of professor research universities dream of attracting. The professor of electrical engineering was a leading member of the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) and had attracted more than $70 million in sponsorship from industry giants. Dr. Laskar founded multiple tech start-ups built on his research which sold for millions of dollars. He was by all accounts a success story.
His last start-up venture while at Georgia Tech was a company called Sayana Wireless, which he co-owned with fellow researcher Stephanie Pinel. Georgia Tech knew of and approved the startup and GEDC held an ownership percentage. In May of 2010, Sayana was on the verge of being purchased, but instead it all came crashing to a halt.
On May 17, 2010, university President Bud Peterson suspended Dr. Laskar without pay because of alleged malfeasance identified in an internal audit. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) executed search warrants on campus and at his home, seizing personal and university computers. Dr. Laskar and three others working with him were arrested but released. Dr. Laskar was fired by Georgia Tech in May 2011.
The Allegations
Georgia Tech alleged Dr. Laskar had improperly used university resources for the benefit of Sanaya without proper authorization or disclosure. The GBI alleged that approximately $1 million had been improperly transferred from GEDC to Sayana and that Dr Laskar had improperly purchased chips that Sanaya then sold. It was also alleged that Sanaya received services from GEDC illegally, even though it had a contract with Georgia Tech to use the GEDC, its equipment, employees and other university resources.
The accusations against Laskar led to a failed prosecution against him in state court. In December 2014, a grand jury indicted Laskar for racketeering and theft. The trial court dismissed the charges against Laskar nearly two years later as untimely.
Dr. Laskar, on the other hand, filed a civil rights violation lawsuit against the university officials who lead the audit which resulted in the allegations and his firing. In a 62-page decision, the Court determined that the 2014 decision which dismissed the lawsuit against Dr. Laskar was a sufficient basis on which to allow him to sue University officials for civil rights violations. Laskar v. Hurd, et al. (11th Cir. 2020) 972 F.3d 1278. In that decision, the 11th Circuit stated that the allegations against Laskar resulting in the searches and seizures were unequivocally false. 972 F.3d at 1280. There is no explanation in the decision as to why Georgia Tech made these allegations and fired Dr. Laskar in the first place.
There is no doubt that serious allegations of misuse of funds and fraud should not be dismissed out of hand. Universities have a legitimate interest in protecting publicly funded research, both from an academic reputation basis and a commercial basis. There have been other instances of professors being terminated for such conduct. A Texas A&M professor was fired for misusing $100,000 in university funds. (WSJ, 1997) A University of Virginia professor was also terminated for misusing research funds. (Pollit, 2001) However infrequent, it is clear that a universities receiving taxpayer funds must take these breach of trust and fraud cases quite seriously.
Laskar’s case in particular brings into focus the tension between modern faculty entrepreneurship and institutional participation. In 1980, Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act, 35 U.S.C. §§200-212 which allowed professors and universities who received government research funding to retain an ownership interest in their research and developments. With the boom in technological advancement over the last four decades, this has proved a boon both for the professors and for the academic institutions. The potential for conflicts of interest grew exponentially with the boom and caused universities like Stanford to publish guidelines for their staff on what resources can be shared, what must be disclosed and if students can be involved in university sponsored research with a commercial component. (Stanford, 2024)
Dr, Laskar asserted that he acted in good faith throughout the Sayana start-up and, more importantly, that Georgia Tech had encouraged the endeavor and had an ownership interest it. He also alleged that the university provided false information to state prosecutors.
The allegations against Dr. Laskar were quite serious. However, the evidence behind such allegations does not back them up. Despite the GBI raids and indictmentDr. Laskar was never convicted of any wrongdoing. No trial took place. No guilt was established. In fact, Dr. Laskar received $250,000 in a settlement from the university for back pay, benefits and legal fees for the manner in which it fired Dr. Laskar.
Entrepreneurship vs Institution
Georgia Tech is a research institution and has built its reputation and brand in part of the success of faculty entrepreneurs like Dr. Laskar. They nurtured his projects for years and received payments for licensing on technology from his research. At Georgia Tech’s encouragement, Dr. Laskar founded the GEDC, which they advertised as a jewel of the university. What caused the massive turn against Dr. Laskar, with raids, arrests and prosecutions, is still somewhat of a mystery. Some think Dr. Laskar’s somewhat pompous attitude was part of his fall. (Wingfield, 2013) However, if pomposity is the criteria for firing tenured professors, we would have a dearth of qualified professors in most of our academic institutions.
The academic literature recognizes the tension between commercialization and academia. With the technology boom, and the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act, researchers began looking into “spinouts,” start-ups that resulted from faculty research. In an extensive 2008 literature review on the subject, Djokovic and Souitaris looked at the complex relationship between university, faculty entrepreneur, inventors and investors and noted that disputes most often comes to a head when looking at the equity split. (Djokovic, 2008) They believed further studies needed to be conducted an evaluating “spinning out” as a commercialization strategy of universities and their technology transfer offices. Because the universities receive federal research grants and also hold an economic interest in many of the companies started by their faculty, there is a responsibility on the part of the university to specifically address the somewhat porous boundary on how a researcher entrepreneur can spend research grant money.
When policies are complex, ambiguity needs to be limited. Academic institutions bear the burden of ensuring that guidelines are clear, and that enforcement is appropriate and evidence-based, not reactive and punitive.
In the case against Dr. Laskar, it appears the evidence never materialized.
REFERENCES
Bayh-Dole Act, 35 U.S.C. §§ 200–212 (1980). https://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-35-patents/35-usc-sect-200/
Djokovic, D. & Souitaris, V. (2008). Spinouts from academic institutions: A literature review with suggestions for further research. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 33(3), 225–247. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-006-9000-4
Knight, C. (2022, Jul 26). The curious case of Joy Laskar. Medium. https://medium.com/@charlesdknight1/the-curious-case-of-joy-laskar-bac6b1b38724
Laskar v. Hurd, et al. (11th Cir. 2020) 972 F.3d 1278. https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201911719.pdf
Pollit, D., Freidlander, M., Murthy, V. (2001) Academic freedom and tenure: University of Virginia. Academe: Bulletin of the AAUP, 49-60. https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/University-of-Virginia.pdf
State of Georgia v. Laskar (2016) Fulton County Superior Court. Indictment No. 14SC131684.
Standford University. (2024) Faculty entrepreneurship playbook. Stanford Law School. https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Faculty-Entrepreneurship-Playbook-2024-Final.pdf
Thompson v. Clark (2022) 596 U.S. 36. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/596us1r21_5f57.pdf
Wingfield, Nick. (2013, Nov. 6) Reaching for Silicon Valley. The New York Times, Sec. BU, p. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/technology/reaching-for-silicon-valley.html
Wingfield, Nick. (2017, Apr. 9) Ex professor says dismissed racketeering case is still ‘devastating.’ The New York Times. Sec. B, p.3. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/09/business/joy-laskar-georgia-tech-racketeering-case.html
Unknown. (1997, Mar. 12) NSF launches investigation into Texas A&M professor. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB858106430752390500
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