Colleges Can Rescind Degrees!

But on the other hand..You put in the work for fours and got that degree, does a fake reference letter change that?

I wonder if having a degree rescinded really stops anyone from using the degree legally on the resume/cv. I mean most people keep a copy of their transcripts at home to show employers. What is a school going to say if someone calls to check on a degree, "oh, I'm sorry we took John Doe's degree away because he talked smack about the Jews."

p.s. Sorry if me using the word Jew in a hypothetical situation offended any one.

 

Did you tattletale in the sand box as well? It was in response to the people are in denial comment. Of course it was baseless just like zanger's comment about people being in denial for not agreeing with him/her. Severe accusation? Lol, I will make sure that his/her employer or family don't find out. I am sure, as it was ignored by everyone else, they knew it wasn't meant to do harm.

Way to turn a private entities policy into a political issue.

 

I thought you were being serious with your comment, I didn't catch your satirical intent. If it was truly a comment intended to make light of an error in another comment than I apologize for over-reacting. If it had been serious, than I believe it would have been a violation of the forum rules. So, although I may have misunderstood, I hope you can understand why I was concerned by it and didn't understand the moderator letting it slide. As it is, I stand corrected.

I believe his denial comment was supposed to make light of the fact that we may put too much trust in our governments, schools, etc. It may require further elaboration; however, that is a belief that is widely held.

Incidentally, many schools are not private entities and big business (many public schools) are political in nature as well. Corporations that get too powerful are just as dangerous as a government that is out of hand.

 

Chill man.....Can't we all get along?

 

Ah, no it was definitely a joke. No offense taken, no offense meant. We have several moderators and administrators posting in this thread so I am sure if they thought I was serious they would have mentioned it.

 

I think we are getting along. The point of a discussion board is to have differing ideas but to still be respectful. I haven't seen anything posted that was TOO far over the line.

 

My apologies, I'm embarrassed. I should have been slower with my criticism. Thanks for understanding my confusion.

 

Don't be embarrassed, now you are going to make me feel bad. Look, it brought us closer together lets move on.

 

Quit with the personal attacks.

 

Yes Sir. Thank you.

 

She lost because they can take the degree for any reason no matter how absurd. The justification of taking her teaching degree was because her picture would promote underage drinking, but she was 22. If a college can rescind a degree for a creating a calendar they can take a degree for any reason. The courts consistently back the colleges because the college has the right to stop a licensee from using its name. Just like a sports team that licenses its name to a T-shirt company.

I noticed a pattern that all the rescinded degrees were at non-profit colleges.

 

Here is an example of what I mean by your degree is licensed. Just like the T-shirt company pays a fee to use the University of Florida name, you paid a fee to use the University of Florida name on your resume. The T-shirt company will lose its license if the company behaves in a way the college feels is an embarrassment or liability to the college. That is the reason they took the degree away from the calendar publisher, they considered a former graduate mocking their belief system to be a liability so they would not let him say he was a graduate anymore. If he put on his resume that he graduated from the college he would be committing fraud. I would be real careful about criticizing the college you graduated from.

 

That goes against everything I thought America was.

 

Obtaining a college degree use to be considered a historical event, as in:
XYZ College, Graduated 1905

But now, it is considered legally to be an ongoing certification such as Microsoft certification. Notice in the below legal opinion the court says the degree is a certification to the world, that means it is ongoing. Since it is ongoing colleges can discontinue the degree at will. Many colleges are now arguing that revoking a degree is like divorce. The diploma is like a marriage contract that one side at some point in the future can discontinue. Just like 10 years after a marriage contract one party decides to dissolve the contract by divorce.

The University of Massachusetts said they wanted to end their "relationship" with Robert Mugabe. After you graduate from college you enter into a long term relationship with the college, revocable at will by either party.

Trade groups demand payment periodically for people to remain "certified." If a college gets into money problems it can, with a vote of the trustees, require a fee to continue to be a graduate. Far fetched? At one time transcripts were free.

Bottom line, what you think is "your" degree that cost $150,000 can be revoked at will, because it is just a license like the T-Shirt company gets to put the dopey cartoon character college logo on shirts.

 

Harvard Revokes Degree

Below are quotes from the Harvard school newspaper about the rescinding of a degree. Note:
1. They say he used a false name, but that name is legally and officially accepted by the Russian government.
2. Attendance would of been impossible with any other name.
3. There is no due process in making the decision to rescind a degree, it was done by a bureaucrat in admissions.
4. They never gave him a chance to present evidence.

What the college did was perfectly legal. OK, you might say that the circumstances are obvious. But since rescinding degrees (Rewriting history) is becoming so common, shouldn't all colleges have some kind of a process where the former student can at least give his side of the story? Legally, no, because we get back to the relationship that can be ended by either party at will.

 

You seem to be suggesting that revocation of degrees is some shocking new development. But it isn't. For example, the specific legal opinion that you cite, Waliga v. Board of Trustees of Kent State University, was issued in 1986 -- nearly a quarter of a century ago. Somehow you neglected to mention that factoid.

Furthermore, you seem to have omitted key parts of the full court decision in that case, including the following:

In the Waliga case, two degrees were revoked after the university discovered that grades had been incorrectly issued for courses that were never taken. Most people -- whether in 1986 or today -- would probably agree that is reasonable to revoke a degree that was found, after a fair hearing, to have been awarded due to fraud or error.

In fact, the Waliga decision referenced a similar case in Britain, The King v. University of Cambridge, which was decided in 1723. The conclusions in 1723 were similar: a university may revoke a degree "for reasonable cause" after a fair hearing.

 

Well, in that case, our recollection is somewhat inaccurate.

The lady in question did not graduate and then have her degree "taken away". On the contrary, the university awarded her a degree in English after discovering the "drunken pirate" picture. And she still has it. No degree revocation occurred.

She sued because she didn't want to graduate with a degree in English -- she wanted a degree in education and a teaching certificate instead. The university argued (successfully) that she hadn't met the qualifications for the latter, and that she had to settle for the former.

Now, the university's decision in this instance may or may not make sense. But it has nothing to do with the revocation of a degree after it has been awarded. The issue in this case arose prior to the award of the degree, not afterwards.

 

We had a recent thread related to rescinded degrees and I think it was lost in our recent data mishap. So I dug up an older thread in order to tack on this story about Konrad Lorenz losing his honorary doctoral degree

Austrian university strips Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz of doctorate due to Nazi past

 

That link is returning an error that it is no longer valid.

 

Some newspapers do not keep their stories "alive" for long. Interested parties will have to resort to google to learn the details.