Nine months after the federal investigation became public, Psychology Department Chair Susan E. Carey ’64 threw her hands up in frustration.

“It could take seven years,” she said in an interview with The Crimson last week. “It’s really, really a mess.”

An ORI investigation into a case like Hauser’s typically takes weeks to months to reach its conclusions, according to Ann Bradley, a spokeswoman for the ORI. But if Hauser chooses to appeal the body’s findings, the process could drag into years, Bradley said.

While the federal body conducts its own investigation and reviews Harvard’s findings, the Psychology Department has been forced into a waiting game.

Carey said that she has not been made privy to the details of the University’s investigation.

But in February, the Psychology Department—whose jurisdiction extends to Hauser’s courses but not to his research—barred Hauser from teaching and advising in the 2011-2012 academic year.

Carey said that Harvard’s findings of “misconduct” provided sufficient grounds to prohibit Hauser from teaching.

But until more information on the nature of the misconduct is revealed, Carey says the department will refrain from making a long-term decision.

“Since we’re in an epistemic bind, we feel that we can’t make a permanent [decision],” Carey said. “The reason we only did it for one year is that we’re waiting for the ORI to make its findings public.”

Following the department vote, Smith barred Hauser from teaching across FAS in the coming academic year.

Yet Hauser remains a tenured faculty member in FAS, and it is unclear what role he will play on campus next year.

A tenured faculty member has never faced dismissal proceedings from FAS for research misconduct, but according to the American Association of University Professors, misrepresentation, falsification, and ethical or policy violations are legitimate reasons for termination of tenure.

REPLICATING THE RESULTS

In the midst of public speculation, Hauser has remained largely silent. In a statement made last August, Hauser admitted to making “some significant mistakes,” But he refrained from commenting on whether he committed scientific misconduct and has declined to discuss the ongoing investigation.

And in a statement published in conjunction with the retraction, Hauser took responsibility for an “error,” but did not speak to the possibility of the University’s more severe charge of “misconduct.”