According to a piece in the Huffington Post, Harvard is cracking down on espionage, or something:
Harvard University has revoked a degree in public administration it gave to a man who turned out to be a Russian spy living in Massachusetts under a stolen Canadian identity.
Harvard spokesman Doug Gavel said Friday the John F. Kennedy School of Government stripped [Andrey] Bezrukov of the master’s degree for violating its policy on misrepresentation in his application.
One wonders if Harvard also plans to return the tuition the erstwhile alumnus paid to attend its policy school.
Calling himself Donald Heathfield, Bezrukov earned an M.P.A. degree from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 2000. On June 27 agents arrested Bezrukov and nine others for acting as spies for the Russian government.
Harvard’s decision to revoke Bezrukov’s degree is actually a pretty meaningless gesture. Whatever named he used, Bezrukov went to the Kennedy school and earned a real degree there. Beyond that, he’s a spy. It’s not like he has any chance of getting a job in the U.S. again, no matter where he went to school.
