Rethinking a no brainer

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Why people cheat about the credentials
How societal mores contribute towards this kind of dishonesty
Unseen consequences of lying about credentials
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Lying about ones credentials is indeed a violation of societal norms and contradicts principles of integrity. Therefore, such kind of conduct will not be justified. Instead, it is actually necessary to offer a valid explanation of why the phenomenon occurs. This issue is highly context specific and actually occurs as a result of certain hidden factors.

As in the case of Richard Bromenthal, who claimed that he had served in the Vietnam war, it is always an issue of overcoming rigid obstacles that impede individuals from growing in the careers or even accessing job opportunities.

Most employers require work experience and knowledge of academic background before they can even think about giving someone a job. This makes it impossible for those who are fresh from university or who may not have been given a chance by any other employer even if they are well skilled for the job.

Therefore, by overemphasizing on experience, skills and personal qualities, society causes a huge number of individuals with the right qualities and personality to miss out on these critical opportunities. Also, certain rules exist even when they clearly lack a commercial value attached to them. It will be argued in this paper that given all these circumstances, then it is quite reasonable to witness falsification of ones credentials.

Why people cheat about the credentials

The scientific community has not been immune to cases of falsification of credentials. Even Doctors and other professionals have engaged in some degree of falsification because of a number of reasons. Top on this list is the rigorous nature of research approval processes in the scientific community.

Before a researcher can be given a grant, he or she may need to have very complex curriculum vitae that should include a series of academic accomplishments and awards as well. Certain doctors may have worked so hard to acquire their academic credentials so most may feel as though it is quite unfair to them to ask for more.

Having an additional award may not always be easy to achieve and may lead to minimization of opportunities within the scientific community because of this occurrence. Not every researcher will be in a position to get these kinds of support and may actually make grants inaccessible to a majority of them. Therefore, some scientists may opt to work around this problem by padding their CVs so as to meet those stringent conditions.

Eventually, this may lead to approval of individuals who may have falsified their information. Such was the case with a Duke University researcher whose area of interest was cancer research. He had been accused of this dishonesty by his peers who found out that he never really got an award as he had purported in his documents (Fustenberg, 2010).

Sometimes parties may lie about their credentials simply because they feel that they possess all the requirements for carrying out a certain job except their credentials. Most have a lot of experience in the field and may actually feel entitled to doing a certain job because of this. They get around this problem by falsification.

A case in point was that of two West Virginian miners who had been accessed of claiming that they were certified to carry out safety investigations as foremen. This information was obtained by a healthy and safety inspector in mining. The candidates both pleaded guilty to the charges after affirming that they were indeed guilty of falsification. It is likely that these individuals chose to do this simply because they could get away with it. The health inspectors were by and large very experienced people.

They should have been in a position of ascertaining whether those two miners were competent or not. It is likely that the company realized that they were indeed capable of carrying out their duties well and without any challenges. In other words, falsification takes place because the concerned individuals already have the experience or the skills to show for it all they lacked was the formal approval process thus explaining why it is common to find a number of them engaging in these practices (Elikins, 2011).

How societal mores contribute towards this kind of dishonesty

It is quite common to hear people lying about serious matters in real life. This culture of dishonesty is so intense as to perpetuate into the legal system. Many individuals have taken the witness stand and lied about lots of things there. This goes on even after the said witnesses take an oath that they will tell the truth.

Therefore, the occurrence has become so engrained in the minds of the population to a point of causing professionals to do the same. Some government representatives taking the stand as witnesses actually lie about their credentials even when they know that this could severely affect the credibility of their assertions and their judgment. The toxicologist James Ferguson affirmed that he had lied about his year of departure from college but quickly shrugged this off as unimportant.

He claimed that it was not relevant and that he twenty years of experience actually illustrated this. In fact, it was soon uncovered that the toxicologist had been lying about his credentials plenty of times. To him, this was nothing new because he believed that witnesses always did this all the time (Hillar, 2011).

The world of technology has created fertile ground for the falsification processes. This is because there is an underworld of criminal organizations which are dedicated to creation of false academic credentials. Their work is to boost education CVs by making background checks on institutions and identifying loopholes that can assist individuals to get away with this kind of falsification.

Because the American culture is such that only the best are allowed to progress, then those who fall outside this bracket are often left out. In order to boost their chances of getting somewhere, vast numbers of people will engage the services of criminal organizations.

In other words, the whole country is obsessed with perfection or being best. Lying may be deemed as a necessary part of the corporate culture because everyone wants to be on top. The corporate culture is characterized by the all or nothing law. In other words, when one goes to university or college, it is only the best performers who have a chance at getting good jobs. Furthermore, those who keep rising up the ranks at the workplace are the ones who have demonstrated that they are the best.

However, since the bar has been set so high already, it becomes very difficult for the average worker to access these opportunities. This need for perfection drives many parties to falsify information about themselves just so that they can get ahead; it is a casualty of the culture in our society.

The US along with many other western states is characterized by capitalist enterprises. In other words, individualism and the need to do well as a person outweigh communal concerns. To this end, money making or profit generation is the number one reason behind engagement in economic activities.

Sometimes this obsession with increasing profits causes a wide number of people to fall into the trap of falsifying. If lying will increase the amount of profits, then businesses will willingly do it irrespective of the morality of their behavior. Such motives can be contrasted to the ones that are prevalent in community based societies.

Those regions often pay more attention to the consequences of actions within ones community. If someone is aware that lying about his credentials may lead to unwarranted consequences in the community then that individual may be prompted to refrain from those actions. However, if someone is only concerned about his o her well being then chances are that no single piece of information will be carried forward to other generations.

Unseen consequences of lying about credentials

Sometimes, lying about ones credentials may not just be limited to individuals or job seekers but may span across the board. In other words, even business entities sometimes engage in this kind of behavior so as to have many recruits. A case in point was Centura College which had falsified its credentials with the intention of getting more clients.

This was a for profit learning institution that claimed that it was WVI approved. As a result of this claim, a certain client called Corey Lewis enrolled into this institution in order to take advantage of this very aspect which is WVI approval. Lewis was a retrenched worker who was eligible to WVI financial aid as explained in the Workforce Investment Act (Bennet, 2010). One month into his course, Lewis realized that the college had not been approved and he therefore had no way of paying his tuition fees.

The client decided to sue the institution for falsification of their credentials and if he went through then the College would be obligated to pay a maximum of three hundred and fifty thousand US dollars in compensatory damages. The company had lied about those credentials in the hope that it would be in a position to attract more business into its premises; however, this had the unforeseen consequences of attracting legal action against it.

In the end, the organization could lose much more than it would have gained if it had not engaged in this falsification. Furthermore, their reputation will be tarnished and this is always a bad thing in business, more so in the education sector. When asked whether this company was aware that it had lied about the approval, Centura College claimed that they had changed names and failed to update this information thus making them non eligible to WIA.

Such false representations may have the immediate short term impact of attracting clients but they never really last for long because they often lead to long term negative impacts such as legal suits or even a tarnished company name. furthermore, if such cases become common place, then it is likely that American citizens will lose faith in their educational system or any other industry which lies about their respective credentials (Bennett, 2010).

In the case of the miners discussed earlier, it is likely that the falsification may lead to eventual safety predicaments. Some of the issues that need to be checked by the Health inspectorate could actually be crucial to the well being of those concerned. Such miners who have not undergone these safety procedures may put themselves or their workmates in danger and may also cause substantial losses to business experts thus explaining why this may not always be the case (Elkins, 2011).

In the scientific community, falsification of ones credentials may lead to the most severe repercussions of all. In the case of the Duke researcher who had lied about his history and the fact that he had received an award, it is likely that his career may have been tarnished.

There were more than a dozen letters that were set to the scientific review board concerning this doctors conduct with a large number of them questioning this individuals credibility. Some of them ascertained that because Dr. Pottis credentials could be questioned then he should not continue researching.

These allegations were so severe that they lead to the eventual suspension of the researcher. In this regard, his career was jeopardized. However, this was not the only casualty, perhaps another more serious issue was the effect that his work would have on real patients. Dr. Potti had been carrying out researches on breast and lung cancer. His intention was to come up with a prediction model that would assist him in determining the most suitable chemotherapy drugs for patients.

However, after a thorough review of his work by his colleagues, most of them realized that his methodology was questionable and that his results were wrong as well. If his predictions were utilized in the real world, then could be quite hazardous to patients health. Doctors would predict and administer the wrong treatments thus causing fatal results. To this researcher, padding his CV was nothing more than an attempt to get past the rigorous approval process of the cancer granting bodies.

However, he had not thought about the unforeseen consequences of his actions. This unethical behavior was not only detrimental to his career as a reputable Doctor and researcher but it was also dangerous to the subjects that he was studying. Instead of contributing towards better health treatments, this individual was actually impeding it by exposing patients to undue harm or undue risks (Fustenberg, 2010).

Falsification can affect other peoples lives substantially even negatively for example, in the case of the toxicologist who gave false information about his experience, it is likely that the information he gave about the witness was also wrong and that she may have imprisoned on the basis of an opinion that was not credible at all.

In an attempt to appear experienced, this individual may have made himself paper more experienced and this may have given undue weight to his opinions. He was an officer of the court and a public servant so he was expected to behave ethically in the eyes of the law. In this regard, he suffered the consequences of getting caught by receiving a sentence of thirty years in jail or a fine of one thousand dollars (Hillar, 20100).

Linda (2010) explains that falsified credentials are very risky to employers because they lead to situations in which people are awarded for things that they never carried out. the proliferation and development f diploma mills or falsification businesses can have severe repercussions within the workplace because they may reward the wrong people or they may close the door for those who are actually entitled to those opportunities.

They harm businesses because some of the employees who are enrolled may have obtained their certificates from none existence colleges or institutions. Alternatively, some may choose a poorly known institution which rewards students with certification even when the kind of work that they put in was much less than what other approved institutions require from them.

Furthermore, since employers may not have the time or the logistics to go through all applicants papers, it is likely that a high number of them may go undetected and this will affect such outcomes (Zharkov, 2010). It should be noted that all it takes is a background check by the concerned institution through university databases online.

However, in certain circumstances, some names may be missing from the approved list so an employee could have genuinely obtained a degree from a university but may miss out on the opportunity because of the misgivings of technology. One way in which employers can overcome this obstacle is by doing a background check on the concerned individuals so that they can prevent reoccurrence of these problems.

A very serious consequence of falsifying credentials is getting caught and being imprisoned for those actions. People who have taken part in these kinds of arrangements will often find that they are putting themselves in very dangerous positions. Falsification of business records is an offense in law (parson, 2011). Also, grand larceny and false instruments are all possible charges that can be placed against the concerned individuals and they could make him a criminal in the eyes of the law.

Because a person may be receiving pay checks on the basis of the falsified information then that individual will actually be contributing towards poor service provision. This person could also get charged for such an issue as was the case with a former psychologist of the court called Feldman. Feldman had purported that he had been a student of Hamilton University. However, it was soon discovered that he had obtained these papers from a diploma mil that exchanged certificates for cash.

Additionally, the individual had been working for the department for a period of four years after it was discovered how dangerous this person could be to the entire department. He had been given the responsibility of evaluating defendants or those who were eligible for court petitioning yet he was not fully aware of what this entails and there is no doubt that certain individuals were released because of the toxicologists misdeeds (Annet, 2010).

Sometimes falsification of documents may not always appear as it is. In this regard, an individual could be accused of the charge and fired from their positions even when this may not have a firm basis. A case in point was that of a noted whistle blower within the US Army. This individual was a scientist in the institution and had been responsible for bringing out a series of cases against many dishonest individuals in the army.

He had been working for the Pentagon in particular and had been responsible for unraveling unethical behavior. It is likely that this may have ruffled the feathers of many influential persons in the Army. At the time of charging this individual, the Army had tried letting him off for unacceptable performance but because it was not possible to do so under US law, he still remained an employee of the US Army.

However, as one looks through the facts of the case, one immediately realizes that there could be ill motives disguised under these intentions. Those concerned individual was exposed to a series of government documents which were classified. He was in a position to ascertain whether conduct within the department was ethical or not. In this regard, he threatened the job of very many individuals. Before this scenario, he had been a noted critic and whistle blower.

Consequently, it may be that the accusations of false credentials may not be true. In other words, he may not have lied about his credentials as these may have been planned against him. Therefore, sometimes the charge of falsification may be used as a tool to help unethical employees get rid of whistle blowers in their presence. The lesser charges filed against this same individual testify to the fact that some parties may have had a vendetta (Lardner, 1992).

Conclusion

In essence, falsification of credentials has become more common place than ever people. This has been perpetuated by the proliferation of technology that allows for the growth of diploma mills. Also, some people do it in order to get around the complex or almost impossible criteria set by authorities.

Alternatively, some may do so simply because they feel that they have the right skills or experience and that one tiny requirement does not undermine their capabilities. On the other hand, it can be argued that this goes on because of the individualistic and perfectionist attitude inherent in society. Generally, speaking, this falsification does lead to unintended consequences such as law breakage, legal suits, tarnished careers or businesses and possible harm to the public.

Works Cited

Lardner, George. Army Accuses SDI critic of falsifying credentials. Washington post April, 14, 1992

Gurav, Peter. Saratoga Springs man indicted in false credentials case. Fake certification, 18 November, 2010. Online

Bennet, William. Student Accuses Centura College of Lying About Credentials. RSS News, September 22, 2010. Print.

Elkins, Wallace. Two WV Miners Make Plea Deals to Lying About Credentials Charges. California News, Feb 23, 2011. Online.

Furstenberg, Joan. Duke researcher suspended accused of lying about credentials. New York Times, Jul 20, 2010. Print.

Hillar, Bill. Man Charged With Lying About Credentials. NYDaily News, January 25, 2011. Online.

Linda, Johnson. Falsified Credentials a Risk to Employers, Business Fraud Focus, 11.3, 2007: 43-44. Online.

Mary, Annette. Former Toxicologist Sentenced For Lying About Credentials. Daily News, May 13, 2010. Print.

Parsons, Larry. FBI arrests MIIS lecturer accused of lying about credentials. Herald News, 01/26/2011. Print.

Zharkov, Rajiv. Falsifying credentials. The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 11, 2008. Print.

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