Delaware Man Charged With Faking His Way Into Harvard | Hacker News Reader

Delaware Man Charged With Faking His Way Into Harvard

nytimes.com

3 pointstokenadult13 comments

Shouldn't they check that sort of thing before admission?

20 offenses, no way. He's just played them for fools and now they're trying to do their best to get back at him. They should simply throw him out and mark his name on some list and be done with it.

Applying for federal financial aid fraudulently is a federal crime. That takes money away from eligible students.

According to the story linked in the other thread, there's "over" $45K of money involved. $14K in two writing prizes won with plagiarized material and $31K in financial aid.

The latter is certainly a criminal issue.

However you do have a point about the rigor of their admissions process, one local phone call to the MIT Registrar's office before the final decision would have sunk his scheme ... unless of course he used the name of a real student there. Maybe "identity fraud" includes identity theft, which is also something the state has in interest in deterring.

One final point: higher education is a big Massachusetts industry and probably one of its healthier ones, I can see the state taking a harder line on all this than many others.

The Boston Globe on the same story, with photograph of the accused:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/05/by_gl...

Right, because of course, an accused person automatically loses all rights and needs to be nailed to the proverbial cross for all to see.

Shaming people went out of style in the middle ages, once convicted it's a different matter, but it seems a bit premature to do this.

The university has a couple of things to explain as well, such as why they believe applicants without checking up.

What's interesting is that the article does not mention how well he was doing academically.

In the case of a man with a name like that in the United States, publishing the photograph of a charged defendant (which is quite routine here, actually) may do a favor to other people who have the same name but are not that man.

The counter of that is that they shouldn't be publishing the names of defendants in the first place.

If someone is exonerated (unlikely in this case, but still) then their lives are still ruined, especially if their name is rare.

No, actually here in the United States the presumption of innocence for the accused is sufficiently strong that it is all right to publish the names of the accused. The reason that the names of criminal defendants are a matter of public record is precisely to avoid the totalitarian practice of secret trials, in which no defense witnesses come forward because no friends of the accused know that they need to come forward.

That's nice in theory, but in practice it seems to lead to trial-by-media.

I know from your other posts that you don't live here in the United States. Really, truly readers of the mainstream mass media in my town understand that reports of ACCUSATION of criminal behavior are just that: reports about accusations. Some defendants are acquitted at trial, even after extensive press coverage. There is currently a businessman in my town accused of multiple financial crimes. He is still out of jail as prosecutors prepare for trial, and he still has friends, lawyers, and various forms of practical help in dealing with the accusations against him.

Again, in theory it works that way. But in practice, the accusations are front page news and the exoneration is not, if it even gets a mention at all.

In the days before google that may have been ok, but now a reputation is damaged for a lifetime for prospective employers, spouses, business partners and so on that have no knowledge of the case as it happened.

Every year there are more indications that prospective employers will google the names of job applicants, if something negative comes up about you there is a good chance you'll be turned down without so much as the benefit of a chance to tell your story.

It also depends very much on the crime the person is accused for, being accused of some crimes is more easily 'forgiven' than others even if the person was exonerated.

But try finding a job as a teacher once you've been accused of child molestation charges, even after you've been exonerated.

And then there is the problem that even if you are found guilty, there may be a miscarriage of justice or, after you've paid your debt to society you are supposed to be able to start with a clean slate.

If your mug is all over the internet with a juicy story attached to it then you might as well forget about starting over, which in turn might lead to recidivism.

paywalled.

Does the NY Times understand that not everything that happens at Harvard is of consuming interest to the public in general?

I think that all you need to do (for now) is to register. They've said they're going to go to a real paywall system within a year.

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