Hey all, I’m due for a re-investigation soon. I’ve held a TS/SCI for the last four years at a major defense contractor.
I enrolled in a Master’s Program and got caught up in trying to complete it in two years. I found a classmate who also worked at my same company and we began helping each other. Last year, she submitted an assignment that was near a carbon copy of my work and it was flagged for cheating. The professor failed us both in that class and I withdrew from the university. I accidentally submitted her assignment for another class but nothing came from that because I had already withdrawn from the university but she was flagged again for cheating.
I’ve checked my student records and there are not reports of this anywhere, seems to be a wholly professor matter.
I immediately reported this to my FSO and he declined to make it a report since he didn’t feel like it warranted a reportable event.
Since then, I’ve enrolled in at a different school to finish my degree, taking it a much slower pace to not be caught in the same spot before. I am definitely not cheating anymore since it is just not worth it. This is essentially my biggest red flag, I have no write ups at work, no other academic integrity violations, never used drugs, never been arrested, etc.
Just wanted to get opinions on this during my reinvestigation, I plan to be wholly forthcoming with the investigator but of course, not knowing what could makes the mind wander. I just wanted to know what everyone thought of it and what it might mean for my current clearance & reinvestigation.
Ouch! If you had done this before getting a clearance, you probably would be able to mitigate. Since you cheated WHILE holding a clearance, that’s pretty bad and not sure how you would mitigate it. Especially if they ask the other person and she confesses.
I see 3 options. All of them suck. Maybe someone else can think of a better one.
- Say nothing and let them bring it up
- Come clean and pray
- (not advocating this, just listing as a potential option), if there really is no record of it, you could just tell them you were suspected by a prof of cheating. You can say that your work was very similar because you studied everything together and used the same source materials and discussed your conclusions with each other (which I don’t think is technically “cheating”). Of course, now you’re lying to the feds, so… yeah…
I don’t understand your post. You mention that you began helping each other (not illegal to study together and help each other work through work), but she submits a copy of your work which was flagged for cheating. This makes is seem like it was her fault? But then you go on to say that you are not cheating anymore. So what exactly were you doing?
I wouldn’t consider working on homework together cheating. If you were just copying each others homework then yeah that is probably another issue, but your post doesn’t really explain the full extent of what you were doing. I have also never been asked about anything related to my school during my reinvestigations, and if you reported it while explaining the full situation and they declined to make a report then I don’t know why you are worried, unless you didn’t tell them the whole story.