Résumé lies and signals

Today's news includes that of the resignation of MIT's much admired Admissions Dean, Marilee Jones, who admitted fabricating her own educational credentials. Here was a person with no undergraduate degree, who feigned one or more undergraduate and graduate degrees in order to get a low-level professional position decades ago and, then, kept up the false front with a few other misstatements, as she rose to the top of the admissions world. The tale is especially ironic or sad because the wrongdoer's own career success has included a book (and many talks) that emphasizes the importance of personal integrity.

Universities tend to regard false academic credentialing as an especially serious offense, much as Rolex invests more than others in pursuing counterfeit watchmaking and selling. Yet it goes almost without saying that a long career as a successful admissions dean might show that the credential should not have been required in the first place. But, of course, credentials are signals. It is easier for employers to look for skills and talents if they can take some shortcuts, and much as I might be inclined to interview MIT graduates for some jobs and graduates of the Art Institute school for another, MIT the employer is entitled to feel cheated if those without degrees hide among those with the well-earned degrees. Ex post there may be no injury if the job is well done but, ex ante, employers (and therefore potential employees) have a significant interest in the integrity of the credentialing process. Employers (and graduates) would be right to be upset if a university said that X had a diploma with honors when, in fact, the university's officials knew that X had never attended the university in question, or perhaps any at all.

It is tempting to say that the fact of the dishonesty is reason enough to demand resignation. But in many situations we regard dishonesty as but a small flaw when it is not shown to have "caused" a significant harm. A baseball pitcher might lie about his age; a spouse might lie about something in the family background; an employee might lie about fluency in a foreign language. In all these cases, if the party who was miseld discovers the dishonesty rather quickly we are comfortable with a decision to break a contract. Age discrimination law aside, the baseball player's chance of injury and improved performance are related to age. A spouse might not only be uncomfortable with a partner who hides unpleasant things but also might regard family background as important in the choice of a partner. But my sense is that if, instead, there were a twenty-eight year period of great success in these relationships, as there was at MIT, we would think it odd if the original dishonesty were not forgiven or even regarded as fortuitously unknown. To be sure, the employer or spouse might want to send a message to future applicants that signals are serious business, but at some point the reality of performance overcomes this systemic call for integrity and efficiency in the screening process.

Consider, for example, those cases where an applicant for insurance lies about preexisting conditions. We normally ask for causation. If Y lies and says that the premises have a burglar alarm when they do not, and the premises are destroyed by an otherwise covered natural disaster, we regard the insured as deserving of the agreed-upon payments, even though there was an "unrelated" dishonesty in the application process.  There remains some deterrent to dishonesty, as there is in the employment context, because the employer might discover the wrong soon after employment (and the insurer might investigate after a burglary to see whether there was indeed an alarm). It is tempting to suggest that there ought to be a norm akin to a statute of limitations in these matters, except that résumé fraud usually requires ongoing misstatements (or republication of the offending document). If the admissions dean had lied to the employer about drug use thirty years earlier, I do not think that new information, coming to light so much later, would lead to a dismissal or resignation. It is hard to believe that the difference between the cases is that one requires repeated misstatement. Nor is it obvious that the difference is that the employer regards the academic credential as especially central to its mission. Non-university employers also regard such fraud as career-ending. Perhaps employers recognize that if they do not take credentialing fraud seriously, no one else will - while drug use has other crusaders and deterrents.

Finally, there is something interesting about the all-or-nothing quality of the dishonesty's treatment. MIT has just as much incentive to regard plagiarism or other academic dishonesty as a serious offense. But in these cases, a penalty is rarely career ending. One who has cheated on a single exam or paper is, in most universities, likely to be readmitted after some penalty period. Yet that wrong also goes to the core of what the university is about, it is unlikely to be policed by other authorities, and it can be understood to say something about the person.   

Comments

[Joan A. Conway]

I have both the modesty of a learner and the forwardness of a teacher, and at this point the fourteen year prosecution of a Title VII, ADEA, and Public Employee Act, plus Intentional Interference and Fraudulent Inducement into Employment state claims has become a Puppet show, with me playing both Punch and Joan.

However, I have blogged about this endlessly to the other bloggers, so I don't think I am robbing the spital from the Mob Bloggers.

To those who share my love of words, let me take you into the mind of Henry Fielding in his decription about Plagiarism, "Tom Jones," Book XII, Containing the Same Individual Time with the Former, 1, 'Showing what is to be deemed Plagiarism in a Modern Author, and What is to be Considered as Lawful Prize:'

The learned reader must have observed that in the course of this mighty work I have often translated passages out of the best ancient authors, without quoting the original or without taking the least notice of the book from whence they were borrowed.

This conduct in writing is placed in a very proper light by the ingenious Abbe Bannier in his preface to his Mythology, a work of great erudition and of equal judgment. "It will be easy," says he, "for the reader to observe that I have frequently had greater regard to him than to my own reputation; for an author certainly plays him a considerable compliment when, for his sake, he suppresses learned quatations that come in his way and which would have cost him but the bare trouble of translating."

To fill up a work with these scraps may, indeed, be considered as downright cheat on the learned world, who are by such means imposed upon to buy a second time in fragments and by retail what they have already in gross, if not in their memories, upon their shelves; and it is still more cruel upon the illiterate, who are drawn in to pay for what is of no manner of use to them. A writer who intermixes great quantity of Greek and Latin with his works deals by the ladies and fine gentlemen in the same paltry manner with which they are treated by the auctioneers, who often endeavour so to confound and mix up their loss that in order to purchase the commodity you want, you are obliged at the same time to purchase that which will do you no service.

-continued-

[Joan A. Conway]

In which the topic is continued.

And yet, as there is no conduct so fair and disinterested but that it may be misunderstood by ignorance and misrepresented by malice, I have been somtimes tempted to preserve my own reputation at the expense of my reader, and to transcribe the original or at least to quote chapter and verse whenever I have made use either of the though or expression of another. I am indeed in some doubt that I have often suffered by the contrary method, and that by suprressing the original author's name, I have been rather suspected of plagiarism than reputed to act from the amiable motive above assigned by that justly celebrated Frenchman.

In which the topic is continued below.

[Joan A. Conway]

In which the history is farther continued.

Now, to obviate all such imputations for the future, I do here confess and justify the fact. The ancients may be considered as a rich common, where every person who hath the smallest tenement in Parnassus hath a free right to fatten his Muse. Or, to place it in a clearer light, we moderns are to the ancients what the poor are to the rich. By the poor, here, I mean that large and venerable body which in English we call the Mob. Now, whoever hath had the honour to be admitted to any degree of intimacy with this mob must wellknow that it is one of their established maxims to plunder and pillage their rich neighbours without any reluctance, and that this is held to be neither sin nor shame among them. And so constantly do they abide and act by this maxim that in every parish almost in the kingdom there is a kind of confederacy ever carrying on against a certain person of opulence called the squire, whose property is considered as free-booty by all his poor neighbours, who, as they conclude that there is no manner of guilt in such depredations, look upon it as a point of honour and moral obligation to conceal and to preserve each other from punishment on all such occasions.

In which the topic is continued below.

[Joan A. Conway]

Continuation of the topic.

In like manner are the ancients, such as Homer, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, and the rest, to be esteemed among us writers as so many wealthy squires, from who we, the poor of Parnassus, claim an immemorial custom of taking whatever we can come at. This liberty I demand and this I am as ready to allow again to my poor neighbours in their turn. All I profess, and all I require of my brethren, is to maintain the same strict honesty among ourselves which the mob show to one another. To steal from one another is indeed highly criminal and indecent; for this may be strictly sstyled defrauding the poor (sometimes perhpas those who are poorer than ourselves) or, to see it under the most opprobrious colours, robbing the spital.

In which the topic is continued below.

[Joan A. Conway]

Further continuation;

Since, therefore, upon the strictest examination my own conscience cannot lay any such pitiful theft to my charge, I am contented to plead guilty to the former accusation; nor shall I ever scruple to take to myself any passage which I shall find in an ancient author to my purpose without setting down the name of the author from whence it was taken. Nay, I absolutely claim a property in all such sentiments the moment they are transcribed into my writings, and I expect all readers henceforwards to regard them as purely and entirely my own. This claim, hoever, I desire to be allowed me only on condition that I preserve strict honesty towards my poor brethren, from whom if ever I borrow any of that little of which they are possessed, I shall never fail to put their mark upon it, that it may be at all times ready to be restored to the right owner.

In which the topic is continued below.

[Joan A. Conway]

In which the topic is concluded:

The omission of this was highly blameable in one Mr. Moore, who, having formerly borrowed some lines of Pope and Company, took the liberty to transcribe six of them into his play of the Rival Modes. Mr. Pope, however, very luckily found them in the said play and, laying violent hands on his own property, transferred it back again into his own works; and for a further punishment, imprisoned the said Moore in the loathsome dungeon of the Dunciad, where his unhappy memory now remains, and eternally will remain, as a proper punishment for such his unjust dealings in the poetical trade.

[Joan A. Conway]

"One who has cheated on a single exam or paper is, in most universities, likely to be readmitted after some penalty period."
Posted by saul levmore at 11:08 AM in Education | Permalink

Fielding stated that "Dishonesty can be pardoned, but not ingratitude. Jones carried it to a blameable length by too long concealing facts of the blackest dye."

[Joan A. Conway]

It appears to me as if she has an interest in the law but may not be receiving all of the assistance she may need in various aspects of her life to channel this interest productively without causing annoyance to the federal courts.

Posted by: Brian E | April 30, 2007 at 07:59 PM

We live in a capitalistic system. If a person has been denied a job and adequate housing since 1994, and has failed, no in her first summary judgment, but under too many judges in the case, then gross injustice has occurred, because they didn't even review the record from the first summary judgment which was in my favor against the State of California, Board of Equalization, and more than 5 defendants, some of whom were in default, and others who did not answer the complaint promptly, under the court's orders.

A Negligence Claim was filed in 05CV2570, Conway vs. Schwarzeneggar (Bush, too), along with ADA, for retaliatory conduct, because material evidence was denied me, and Tom Glab and Terrence Dudek, in their counter-claims, and lawsuits, for destruction of the evidence, Zia Hasham's U.S. Department of Justice's Right-to-Sue Letter, while Tom, Terry, and me had the EEOC Right-To-Sue Letter, not the statutory requirement for state employees.

Zia received his because he filed under National Origin. Tom, Terry and me filed under gender discrimination. I filed for female discrimination because there were no females in senior management nor in the Area Administrator's job. Tom and Terry filed for gender discrimination, because he were denied the Area Administration's job, because of my EEOC charge, and Gray Davis, then the Lt. Governor of California, and the Board of Equalization put Barbara Bolda, from New York, in as the Area Administration. She was barely 30, and Tom and Terry were over 50 and approaching 60. I was about 54 years old when was constructively discharged for not being in sexual compliance and was levied penalties for my chastity, while a similarly-situated female was affronted and held in contempt for being compromised by one or our trainers. My trainers all made bogus complaints about my performance, and I received a poor job evaluation from my immediate supervisor.

I have Article III standing, since many of my financial responsibilities could not be fullfilled during the litigation of these claims, such as defaulted student loans, housing discrimination, of which I have many articles on, exacted taxes in Public Accommodations, etc.

I always based on facts upon the law and my claims were not frivolous; I was under duress.

[Joan A. Conway]

It should be Tom, Terry and I had.

My time was running out on the Word Processing Station at the Library.

[Cavalieri-Conway, Joan]

"The Capitalist System," Second Edition, Richard C. Edwards/ Michael Reich/ Thomas E. Weisskopf, "Divisions in the Labor Force, page 200:

"The restructuring of the internal relations of the firm exacerbated labor market segmentation through the creation of "internal labor markets."

Job ladders were created with definite "entry-level" jobs and patterns of promotion.

Workers who were not employed in these "career" jobs ---for example, those who were black or female, or who lacked the qualifications for particular entry-level jobs---were excluded from access to that entire job ladder.

In response, unions often sought to gain freedom from the arbitrary discretionary power of supervisors by demanding a seniority criterion for promotion.

In such cases, the union essentially took over some of the management of the internal labor process, agreeing to help allocate workers and discipline recalcitrants, obtaining in return some reduction in the arbitrary treatment of workers by management."

[Cavalieri-Conway, Joan]

"The Capitalist System," Second Edition, Richard C. Edwards/ Michael Reich/ Thomas E. Weisskopf, "Divisions in the Labor Force, page 200:

"The restructuring of the internal relations of the firm exacerbated labor market segmentation through the creation of "internal labor markets."

Job ladders were created with definite "entry-level" jobs and patterns of promotion.

Workers who were not employed in these "career" jobs ---for example, those who were black or female, or who lacked the qualifications for particular entry-level jobs---were excluded from access to that entire job ladder.

In response, unions often sought to gain freedom from the arbitrary discretionary power of supervisors by demanding a seniority criterion for promotion.

In such cases, the union essentially took over some of the management of the internal labor process, agreeing to help allocate workers and discipline recalcitrants, obtaining in return some reduction in the arbitrary treatment of workers by management."

[Cavalieri-Conway, Joan]

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals answered my Motion to Show Cause on May 25, 2006, much the same way as it did on May 4, 2006, and is clearly erroneous.

The motion lacked form as I recently discovered Murbury vs. Madison, and Article III standing in the process of pleading the Motion to Show Cause.

[Joan A. Conway]

Hemingway's Iceberg Theory

"If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water."

[Joan A. Cavalieri-Conway]

Might I remind you that the powers to be decided to withdraw Prince Harry from being a bargaining chip for the Persians.

"They don't have Prince Harry!"

Therefore a part of my prophesy as to the future of one of the Royal Family has found favor with Fortune, and not with Virtue, (fortune and "virtue" here not only alternative, but also joined together in order to help a citizen to become a prince:" Machiavelli's The Prince.

1. A foreign power should not enter an Arab Nation;

2. England should not become more powerful than an Arab State, Iraq.

To restrain the westernization of an Arab State, like Iraq, they used the Islamic Religion sects, who are divided into two factions: Sunni and Shite.

Their constant warring succeeded in keeping the Western powers weak and insecure. Queen Elizabeth, although wise and courageous, along with President George W. Bush, can not ovecome these difficulties, like Pope Sixtus V, could overcome the barons of Rome, the Orsini and the Colonna, with their constant quarreling.

"Men forget more quickly the death of their fathers than the loss of their property."

"There are two ways of fighting, one by law, the other by force.

The first is proper conduct for men, the second is a beastly way of acting.

But, since the first is not always sufficient, one must resort to the second.

Therefore, a prince should know how to play both the beast and the man, as the ancients tried to signify by the legend of Achilles, who was educated by Chiron, the half-beast, half-man Centaur."

[KTen]

Can we get back to the point? She deserved to get fired, and she got what she deserved. I'm sorry that you have been slighted Joan, but, is this really the place to voice your chagrin? It is best to complain to those who can and want to make a difference. I dare say, no one that takes the time to read these words (whether they like them or not) has any power or desire to change the outcome of your personal circumstance. But, good luck on that.

[Alan Attlee]

A cause of action:
In extremis, the republic has not merely
ignored the lessons of Vietnam, it has
embraced the fallacies of imperial Rome.
The current regime - being as it is
uncontestably the most negligent, most corrupt, most criminal regime in the entire history of this republic - is hardly
contested. Impeachment "off the table"?
Some justice among the supremes should
file some complaint somewhere which would
arrive eventually back at his or her desk
with the effect of ruling on this mess
- and not as they did in aiding and abetting
the theft of an election previously!

-Attlee

[Joan A. Conway]

Poor Harry is now enduring harassment for being a 'redhead.' He is called "ginger bullet" something as described in a recent RedEye.

In response to Kten: It is best to complain to those who can and want to make a difference. I dare say, no one that takes the time to read these words (whether they like them or not) has any power or desire to change the outcome of your personal circumstance.

Many times my comments run amuck!

Something I admired in reading Martha's Rules is that it was so positive and upbeat, and she never belabored her plight.

I am a lot less perfect, and it shows.

My apologies.

But when one is going public with their life, the public learns something that they didn't know about the public person, something that is usually hidden from us, because of usually holding these thoughts close to one's own vest.

My blemishes and warts reveal who I am, who I tried to be, and what is left of me, and the ones I dearly love.

It is a vehicle to lighten my load, while I unfortunately dump the load in my blog upon others who read it.

But in my own defense, the game is not only about "joy," it is about "stress," "duress," "being out-of-the-game due to injuries," "off the injured list," and "moving on to next season, or being trades to a new team."

All options are on the table.

This I apologize for!

I will seek more dignity in my comments, especially when I have my own personal computer.

Thanks for standing up to what you feel is miss-using other bloggers.

You have a point and I take notice of it!

[Mohammad T]

hey, i got a problem,and am wondering wot the consequences are going to be probably...
i failed an exam twice,and then for the third attempt,i wrote down in my lecture book that i passed
and now i got a letter saying i have a disciplinary hearing on friday,what is going to happen??