Homeland Security official has Hamilton "PhD"

Re: Diploma

It is easy enough for an HR person to verify an accredited school or an approved one for that matter over the internet if they are interested in doing so. However, I tend to think most HR types in business for instance are looking primarily for relevant and marketable experience along with credentials. The "what have you done for me lately" syndrome in business does not place a lot of continuing stock on the degree itself for most jobs since that was ...once upon a time. The product of that training, experience and contribution, is more valuable.

 

Re: Diploma

No one has argued that all HR people can tell the difference. I believe that this is the primary reason that some do find utility in their unaccredited degrees.

Perhaps you should define what you mean by bottom of the barrel. If you mean that there's differences in reputation and therefore utility among RA degrees then I would agree. If you mean that some RA degrees are as worthless as diploma mill degrees then I can't believe that.

 

Re: Integrity?

A degree from the bottle(?) of your academic barrel could get you a teaching job at almost any regionally accredited school.

Thank you for using Almeda as an example as it has no courses, just a resume and a credit card gets one a degree. With legitimate unaccredited degrees, decisions are tougher.

Just think that when the employer decides to post an employee's impressive Almeda qualifications on the internet, some enterprising soul at degreeinfo gets to bust them.

 

Hey Atlas,

You better watch it. You have a different point of view, and you spelled something wrong. You may be next. All new members are suspected to be the degree mill apologist. You may be one too.

How did she get promoted all this time well after she proclaimed her degree from Hamilton? Did she do a good job, and impress people? Oh well the hell with that, her degree was not accredited send her back to the mail room, or data entry. Maybe we can even prosocute her, and she can share a cell with Martha.

I have never heard of Hamilton. Is the school still around or did it flop? If it is still around is it legal?

 

Well, I for one consider fraud a negative thing.

 

Hamilton is the real thing when it comes to degree mills. No testing or any of that nasty studying. For some reason they seem to be more expensive than other degree mills. Must be a bunch of snobs.

 

One would think that it if a Homeland Security official has a credit card purchased degree, it is fraud.

Now I would think this person can be bought, or worse, manipulated for the secret that she held.

No matter what kind of work she did, she lied about her credentials. She was a security risk for the government and the people of the U.S.

The fraudulent "degree" was enough to show her integrity was poor. She may have been able to do the job, but she wasn't an honest person.

 

True

I was not implying that a bad RA school is the same as a diploma mill. When it comes to things that require a license, a diploma mill will never cut the mustard (ie. teaching).

I'm just not convinced that the lady from the Dept. of Homeland Defense did anything fraudulent. It all depends on how she represented her degree. If no one asked how she earned it, I don't think there is any legal criteria that says she has to say it was earned based on life experience evaluation. If during the interview they asked, "Did you get this PhD by taking courses from an accredited institution?" and she said, "Yes." That would be fraud. If she put it on her resume and the government hired her and was ok with it without asking how it was earned, I don't think she's at fault.

 

Re: True

She has been clearly stating her doctorate was from Hamilton for years. So she didn't misrepresent that. It's just that nobody cared or called her on it until recently. She may have misrepresented her BS though if an accredited degree was required for government service.

The utter lack of work that is required for a degree from that place (it was so much fun, she got three) should make her the poster girl for What Ethics? magazine. That alone should get her busted.

 

Re: True

This is incorrect. Let's say that I sold you a Ph.D. diploma from Burlap University. If you then go and represent to your employer that you have a Ph.D. from Burlap University, you are being a fraud. We would be co-conspirators in the fraudulent act. Here's another example, if we go into a bank to rob it and I kill a teller, we can both be prosecuted for murder. Even though you didn't pull the trigger. Generally, you can't get away with a crime by blaming it on your partner in crime.

 

Diploma Mills

Well, here is where the confusion starts with "diploma mills". If the school is a corporation or non-profit that has the legal authority in the state which it operates to issues awards or degrees, there is no fraud if you represent the way in which you earned the degree honestly. There is no fraud. There is no federal law that says "Fraud is getting a degree from a non-RA school". This is why the problems exist. Super huge gray areas.

 

Re: True

I tend to agree with you. In a legal sense at least, fraud requires that somebody rely on a misrepresentation and that they suffer damages as a result. If this is a woman with a community college background that worked her way up the ladder, performed well and later tried to add phony credentials more commensurate with her new position, but if no damages resulted, it is terrible judgement, but probably not fraud.

I guess that lying is legal in some cases. And that's what she was doing: lying. Buying a fake degree doesn't make lying about one's educational background OK. It's amazing how many people try to make that argument. It's why degree mills stay in business.

People are afraid to lie about educational qualifications that they didn't earn. But if a fake school offers to sell them a diploma that they didn't earn, they believe that claiming the educational qualifications is no longer a lie.

But obviously it is. And if she went beyond a simple ego-boosting vanity degree and used the lie for employment purposes, used it to qualify for positions that required an educational background that she lacked, and signed the obligatory line that everything stated on her application was true, then she probably has some very serious problems.

I do. I think that it could be grounds for termination.

That creates a scary picture, if you imagine a disgruntled former employee with ethical challenges who happens to know all the holes in the Department of Homeland Security's supposedly secure computer system. And perhaps some dirt on its employees as well. She could start a drive-up window for foreign agents and terrorists.

The question here is how it was able to get so far. If the FBI can't spot fake academic credentials, then how can they spot real threats to national security, the foreign agents and terrorists who probably lie far more professionally and convincingly than this amateurish woman.

 

Yeah. The reason is probably because the degree wasn't required.

There are many factors involved in hiring and I'm sure this woman had tons of verifiable experience and success that made her an attractive candidate. I don't care if you have 10 PhDs, legitimate or not, if at that point in your career you don't have professional and real world succes, no one is going to care where you got your degrees.

 

sorry, there was a typo on "success". lol

 

Re: Re: True

It may not be a case of criminal fraud, but I believe we have seen lawsuits filed by other employees who have been passed over for promotions in cases such as this. Those individuals certainly consider themselves to have been defrauded, and have accused the employers of charges ranging from negligence to conspiracy. If it ever gets that far, the employer could certainly make a case that it did indeed suffer damages.

 

We live in a world with millions of jobs. This has never happened. There is no reason to think it is going to start with you or me.

 

What has never happened?

 

Someone with a legal degree being sued for fraud because it wasn't Accred., if they were being honest with how it was earned. If there has been such a case, it's definitely not common. If I had a diploma mill degree, I'd take my chances.

 

That is not what I wrote. In fact, I specifically stated that it was probably not a case of criminal fraud.

Uncommon and never are not synonymous. You said never.

Of course you would.

 

Such lawsuits are filed. That's what Marina Bear's case study is about.