OPM boosts efforts to thwart diploma mills

The Office of Personnel Management announced Monday that it will hold two seminars next month to train personnel officers on how to spot false degrees.

"These phony degrees deceive the public, pose a potential threat to national security, and can give the public the impression that federal employees have expertise and credentials when they do not," OPM Director Kay Coles James said in a memorandum this week.

The May 5 and May 7 OPM seminars in Washington will be used to train human resources officers and OPM officials who review employment applications. OPM is also reworking federal employment applications and background check forms to clarify the distinction between legitimate schools and diploma mills.

The General Accounting Office began an investigation of diploma mills last year after Laura Callahan, a senior director in the Department of Homeland Security's chief information officer's office, was placed on paid administrative leave following allegations that her degrees came from a diploma mill in Wyoming. Callahan has since left DHS. Agency officials have declined to provide details about her departure or the results of their investigation into her credentials.

Several lawmakers have joined with the Education Department to encourage more rigorous screening of the educational credentials of federal job applicants and employees seeking promotions. Education Secretary Rod Paige said in February that his agency will compile a list of accredited higher education institutions to help personnel officers weed out suspicious credentials.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chairwoman of the Senate Government Affairs Committee, announced that she will hold hearings May 11 and 12 to discuss a GAO report on the issue.

"I am pleased that Director James has taken up this challenge and that she appreciates the damage diploma mills can do to confidence in the federal workforce," Collins said. "I have invited the Office of Personnel Management to testify at the hearings and look forward to hearing more about its efforts to stop the payment for and use of diploma mill credentials."

In her memo, James thanked Collins and Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, for pushing the fight against diploma mills.

"Every federal employee must have the utmost confidence of the American people, no matter what job the employee fills," James said. "The way to maintain this confidence is by ensuring that the training and education of the federal workforce are done by accredited institutions."