Dive Brief:

• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has fired a physics professor who served more than two years in prison in Argentina for trying to smuggle cocaine in a suitcase.
• Paul Frampton, 70, was a superstar particle phenomenologist with three Oxford University degrees, but he was duped by a scheme where he thought he was smuggling two kilos of cocaine in a suitcase on behalf of a former Miss Bikini World.
• When the university stopped Frampton’s pay and put him on leave following his 2012 arrest, almost 75 academics signed an open letter condemning the move as improper, claiming he was protected by his tenured status, the News & Observer reported.

Dive Insight:

The newspaper said that UNC’s Faculty Hearings Committee recommended on April 25 that Frampton be fired, and Chancellor Carol Folt's decision to do so was ultimately based on charges of misconduct and neglect of duty. Frampton had tried to retire, but Folt wrote in a letter to Frampton that retirement wasn’t possible. Frampton could appeal to the university’s board of trustees within two weeks of the firing, but it’s not clear if he has done so.