Back in early June, College Insurrection first reported about Professor Geoffrey Miller who tweeted that fat Ph.D candidates need not apply. Miller claimed that the message was part of a research project but a review board isn’t buying that excuse.

Lauren Ingeno of Inside Higher Ed reports.

Review Board finds professor’s tweet was not research

Geoffrey Miller has been called a jerk and a hypocrite. Now his excuse for the controversy that has brought him such criticism is being questioned as well.

Miller ignited a firestorm of outrage in June when he tweeted: “Dear obese PhD applicants: if you didn’t have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won’t have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth.”

After that fat-shaming tweet landed him in hot water, the evolutionary psychology professor claimed it was part of a research project. Reviews by two different universities have found that his tweet could not be considered “research” that would have required approval by an institutional review board.

The University of New Mexico, where Miller is a tenured professor, announced Monday that its Institutional Review Board determined Miller’s Twitter activities “did not rise to the level of ‘research’ much less ‘human-subject research’ as defined by federal regulations.” The IRB at New York University, where Miller is a visiting professor this summer, also opened an investigation. NYU also found that Miller’s alleged “research project” did not require approval from the university’s institutional review board, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

“Miller, the school said, contended that approval was not required because it did not involve research on human subjects,” and the university agreed with him, says Bloomberg Businessweek.

Before making his account private, Miller deleted the original tweet and apologized on his account saying, his comment was “idiotic, impulsive, and badly judged.” He has not since tweeted from that account.