I do site maintenance on a pro bono basis for a small nonprofit group based in the Bay Area. Yesterday I received an email singling out the online bio of one of the group's officers, specifically the line "She holds BS and MBA degrees from Dipshit State University, and occasionally serves on the faculty of [institute of higher learning]." My correspondent continues:

You may need to be aware that Dipshit State does not exist nor has ever existed other than as a printing press and post office box. Do a search concerning that name and learn of the history of fraud surrounding that name. I implore you to research it and see if someing [sic] is making misrepresentations.

It didn't require much googling to discover that "Dipshit State University" does indeed appear to be a university in name only. I responded that I would pass the infomation on to the nonprofit (I later noticed, reviewing his email, that he had thoughtfully saved me the trouble) with my recommendation that the offending elements be excised from the CV, adding that "I will advise you of their decision, if any, provided I am satisfied as to your motives--or that this is not a bot-generated complaint." The reply:

Bot? No, I'm not a perl script or anything of the kind. I was doing research regarding internet fraud and found data on diploma scams. As such, I used google and other engines to find instances of the term 'Dipshit State University" with other words like 'police, director, coach, etc'. So far I have found police officers, members of boards of directors, governor appointees, and even a state representative that have listed this 'degree' as part of their credentials. I've saved pics of all the pages I mentioned, and will go back in one month and see what has simply been covered up and what has been fixed.

That sounded a little ominous. I asked:

What is the distinction between "covering up" and "fixing"?--I doubt very much whether, after dropping the spurious degress, the rewrite is likely to include a public penance, so will the mere removal of references to the spurious diplomas be regarded as a "coverup"?

Our little Inspector Javert responded (emphases added):

It depends on the position that the person held. In the case of the person being a public servant and the point where a degree was required to obtain the job, promotion, or had any bearing to the person's employment, I would expect job termination. In cases where a degree is not needed, then simply the notification of the supervisors will suffice in informing them of the potential fraud and mind set of an employee where they would 'purchase' a degree. It is like purchasing an old uniform or even a medal from a pawn shop and wearing it in a military parade. Illegal is some places, possibly legal in others, but damn insensitive and unethical in any area.

And there we have left it last time I checked. I'm of two minds here. Certainly the faux-degree business is sleazy enough: check out:

[link|http://www.diplomaservices.com/index.html|http://www.diplomase...es.com/index.html]

--an outfit that has the breathtaking audacity to advise consumers to beware of their cut-rate competitors' cheap, shoddy counterfeit diplomas. I would not knowingly hire, say, a surgeon with faked credentials (and I certainly would never check into a hospital where personnel decisions were left to me), but if the surgeon did ten years of unobjectionable work before the deception was discovered, I would at least pause to reflect that there have been a lot of incompetent medicos whose credentials were beyond reproach. The military comparison seems particularly inapt. If I, for example, pass myself off as a veteran of the Vietnam conflict, I am suggesting that I share, and that my character has been formed by, a number of hard life experiences (risking my life, ending the lives of assorted Asians, fragging my officers, enduring physical hardship and prolonged levels of stress), and it seems to me that the real article is entitled to be offended at my presumption. But if X passes himself off as a fellow alumnus of UC Santa Cruz whereas in fact he went straight to work at a FotoMat after high school, and lived at home until he was 24, can I really summon up the indignation to roar at him: "You poseur, you fraud, you weren't there! The marijuana, the psilocybin, the all-night parties, the sexually-forward women on the A-Dorm fourth floor--what can you know of these? My God, gobbling amphetamines the night before the term papers were due, the...the dorm food..." (momentarily losing composure) "...you...you dare?...You are contemptible, sir! Lower than dirt!"

I don't think so. I believe this correspondent (almost certainly a college man--probably an undergraduate even as we speak) is indignant at these people trying to pass themselves off as One of Us, rather the way my old man gloats when he uncovers a celebrity Semite ("Did you know that her name is really 'Finkelstein?'"). To my way of thinking the woman he accuses is more to be pitied than scorned. Who knows why she didn't get her degrees by conventional means? Perhaps she got knocked up in tenth grade and never even managed a GED. Doubtless since that time she has had occasion to observe that higher education, or at least the credentials therefrom, opens some doors, and it may be that her "Dipshit State University" diplomas got her through the first of these and that she has in fact proceeded from there on talent and hard work. I don't know. And neither does my correspondent, but he seems perfectly willing to get her ass fired, or at the very least to cause her some humiliation in the workplace (she has unwisely posted the same CV on her employer's site, and I don't doubt that he's emailed his original communiqué to them as well).

Well, I've made my recommendation to the nonprofit, and will modify the entry according to their call. Do the moral issues here seem murky to anyone else?

cordially,

[edits: typos; barn-door redactions]

karsten recommends:

As an initial step, I'd remove the text in question from this page, immediately, possibly prior to consulting with the individual in question. The information is now effectively public

I take your point, and would be happy to redact the post, but unless our beloved admin consented to bend the accountability rule and extend the redact to the "edit history" page, I don't think it would do any good. But you're quite right on general principles; I ought merely to have described the situation rathet than providing details of the fraud. I doubt whether any of the regulars will abuse this; Javert might happen upon it when his month's deadline has run, but...(shrug)...he will do what he will do.

cordially,

"If I had a pretty little wife I shouldn't let her spend a year in New york while I stayed in Kobe," said he.

Ah, Maugham, one of the last century's most gifted miniaturists. As a know-all myself I know and cherish the story you mention. I have a rather handsome two-volume set of "The Complete Stories" on my bedside bookshelf. He appears to have been, if not actually forgotten, largely relegated to the minors these days, another writer for whom posthumous obscurity followed contemporary renown. He deserves better. I can remember my junior high school "social studies" teacher telling the class that Maugham had died, and then looking a bit depressed as thirty shining faces looked back at him in perfect incomprehension. You might enjoy, if you don't know it, Anthony Burgess' Earthly Powers, the narrator and protagonist of which seems rather clearly modeled on WSM.

My contact at the nonprofit has written back to say that we are to wait until we have heard from the erstwhile graduate of C******* State University, who she contrives to suggest, without actually saying so, is by way of being a bit of a beast. It was intimated that any discussion would rapidly turn unpleasant. Well, she was copied in on the original message/threat I received from Javert, and is perhaps even now arranging for him to be tracked down and killed. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

cordially,

How would you feel if you were competing against someone for a job and that person claimed to have the same experience you did but really didn't?

Pissed off. Possibly sufficiently pissed off that I'd expose the fraud. I just can't see myself taking the kind of drive-by, scattershot approach that Inspector Javert has essayed, if only because bystanders could be injured.

cordially,

Well! As indicated in my original post I saw little to like on either side of the issue, but there are at least a few of you for whom the issues are not murky at all, and I wish you the joy of your moral clarity. It is not to be wondered at that many of the "alumni" you've uncovered are pretty smarmy cases, and it will be interesting to see which pages still make the claim after my correspondent--or perhaps some new enrollees in the crusade from our own roster?--has delivered his velvety threats.

Ah, me, what if I've spawned a dozen Junior Javerts?

A useful lesson for me. Think implications through before posting. Karsten was right.

cordially,

Thats all there is to it

That's seldom the case.

I'm not the least worried, incidentally, about whether this woman loses or retains her job--I was merely curious as to whether anyone else found the self-appointed private dick as creepy as I did. The jesuitical zeal expressed by those of you who do not has been very intersting to observe.

cordially,

[edit: PS removed]

--perhaps I can be absolved of the charge of cynicism, first levelled at me thirty-five years ago by fellow teenagers, and repeated with dreary regularity over the years by people old enough to know better ("Not me," I bark unavailingly--does anyone here remember Tom Swifties?--I will attempt to launch a revival this week in "Oh, Pun!"). I suggested--merely suggested--that Miss Dipshit University Homecoming Queen of 1978 might have neglected to obtain her undergraduate degree owing to teen pregnancy. I didn't aver that this was so ("I don't know," I said, "and neither does my correspondent"). That circumstance if true would not excuse her fraud, but might ameliorate it to humane eyes--those sensibilities on which the irony of Anatole France's famous observation that "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets or steal bread" is not lost. Alas, merely to acknowledge the possibility that Ms. X's crime might have any extenuating elements attached thereunto has called my own virtue into question from a few quarters, but I hope that my judges will at least acknowledge, as they pass sentence, a certain softheartedness lurking beneath my stony exterior. Your true cynic would never have found himself in this position.

cordially,

--possibly because I lack technical competence.

I'm not defending Ms. Dipshit U. Homecoming Queen. Maybe she's scum. Perhaps she should be taken down.

What I'm against is the one-size-fits-all Google-informed condemnation. Because Ms. DUHQ may be the kind of scum who has deprived Todd_Blanchard of a job, but maybe--maybe--she just...stole...a loaf of bread...twenty years ago. But Todd wants her jailed.

I'd want to know more. And I wouldn't set my bots out to bring her down until I knew it. Sorry if this stance convicts me of moral turpitude. It used to be known as "presumption of innocence," and extended even when the initial evidence seemed grave indeed. From what I've seen in this forum, presumption of innocence doesn't seem to carry much weight these days.

cordially,

In the case of the BS degrees, that is a smoking gun.

We still grant a trial even when the smoking gun is Exhibit A. Is this such a foreign concept here?

cordially,