Researcher Fired At NSF After Government Questions Her Role As 1980s Activist

sciencehabit writes Valerie Barr was a tenured professor of computer science at Union College in Schenectady, New York, with a national reputation for her work improving computing education and attracting more women and minorities into the field. But federal investigators say that Barr lied during a routine background check about her affiliations with a domestic terrorist group that had ties to the two organizations to which she had belonged in the early 1980s. On 27 August, NSF said that her 'dishonest conduct' compelled them to cancel her temporary assignment immediately, at the end of the first of what was expected to be a 2-year stint. Colleagues who decry Barr's fate worry that the incident could make other scientists think twice about coming to work for NSF. In addition, Barr's case offers a rare glimpse into the practices of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), an obscure agency within the White House that wields vast power over the entire federal bureaucracy through its authority to vet recently hired workers.

Comments

Re:Wrong Title

[Anonymous Coward]

And what are they accusing her of lying about anyway?

Barr's first background interview was held in November 2013, 3 months after she began working at NSF. During that session, Barr answered âoenoâ when asked if she had ever been a member of an organization "dedicated to the use of violence" to overthrow the U.S. government or to prevent others from exercising their constitutional rights.

The two organizations in question-- one was called " Women's Committee Against Genocide" and the other is the "New Movement in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence." Sound pretty radical?

So how is what she said "being less than forthright" in her answer??

Federal investigators say those groups were affiliated with a third, the May 19 Communist Organization (M19CO), that carried out a string of violent acts, including the killing of two police officers and a security guard during a failed 1981 robbery of a Brink's truck near Nyack, New York.

So wait-- she was part of a group that was-- at least from the name-- "against genocide". And because of "affiliation" to ANOTHER organization... she was lying?

They call her in again and grill her for four and a half hours:

"I found out about the Brinkâ(TM)s robbery by hearing it on the news, and just like everybody else I was shocked,"she recalls.

But OPM apparently thought otherwise, again citing her "deliberate misrepresentation" in its report.

Uh, this doesn't seem to be (from a sparse article that is probably not very complete) very clear cut at all, although I do see the easy potential for targeted politicization. Be on the lookout for political radio pundits to distort further and connect the dots with rampant speculation.

The /. title is also misleading.

Re:Wrong Title

[Anonymous Coward]

Baloney. As someone who deals with the military industrial complex on a daily basis, I know for a fact that the forms you submit to the OPM ask you in plain English "have you ever belonged to an organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of the US government" and these forms are retained by the OPM for something like 7 or 10 years, after which you are required to resubmit them. If she said "no" to the question in question, but knew that her acquaintances went to jail, something objectively doesn't add up. The best possible excuse is that she's just pathologically oblivious, not that the OPM has trumped up charges out of nowhere.

I know it's almost too difficult, but really, read TFA. She did not lie on her forms. None of the groups she belonged to had any such agenda. The OPM made a connection between the groups to which she belonged and third violent group. There is (apparently) no evidence that she belonged to such a group, supported it in any way or would have supported such a group if she knew it existed and had a violent agenda.

Why don't you go beat up some grandmothers or something? That seems about your speed.

Re:Wrong Title

[Anonymous Coward]

The New Movement in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence had as its clearly stated goals:

1) The first principle of our movement must be anti-imperialism.

2) In order to fundamentally change the whole system of military, political and economic domination, our solidarity movement must fight imperialism in its totality. .. By opposing the entire imperialist system, our solidarity movement can support the revolutionary forces and actually help them to win a new world order.

3) The independence struggle of Puerto Rico is a strategic wedge of Latin American revolution that penetrates into the U.S. itself... In response to US imperialism, 5 armed clandestine political-military organizations in Puerto Rico, and the FALN in the US are attacking key US military and corporate targets and leading a growing people's war. Through their struggle for independence these revolutionaries act in concert with the continental anti-imperialist strategy. In January, clandestine independent forces destroyed 9 US jets used to train for possible invasion of El Salvador, valued at $45 million, in solidarity with the revolutionary forces of people's war in El Salvador and in support of the 11 Puerto Rican Prisoners of War. The stance of these 11 patriots as Prisoners of War, and the US charges of seditious conspiracy against them, demonstrate that a state of war for independence exists in Puerto Rico and the US, and that this war has the capacity to cut to the heart of US imperialism.

So... they're advocating violent struggle against the imperialistic US government... and they're associated with M19CO, a designated terrorist organization... and she knew 2 of the Brinks Robbery perpetrators... and she kept in touch with them after they were arrested, convicted, and sent to jail.

But you're right - there's clearly no reason for her to write "Yes" in response to having been a member of an organization dedicated to violent overthrow of the US government, or having any ties to groups with such aims!