Rut-roh.

State legislative leaders in Virginia have started down the path toward compelling Virginia Commonwealth University to revoke the degree it awarded to CMPD Chief Rodney Monroe. Note, this does not mean that revocation will ever happen, just that VCU is being asked to provide some concrete legal reasoning as to why it cannot take the BA degree back.

VCU has done its best to portray itself as helpless to revoke the degree, based on the notion that Monroe did not commit any known academic fraud at VCU. But the investigation into the awarding of the degree shows that virtually everyone Monroe interacted with at VCU with the exception of independent studies program director Linda Spinelli did perpetrate a fraud on the university by awarding Monroe a degree he manifestly did not earn according to VCU’s own standards.

As I’ve said from the very start of this thing, Charlotte City Council should go ahead and make it clear that Monroe is a provisional hire who still needs to finish his BA degree, on the assumption that VCU will revoke the degree it awarded sooner or later. Otherwise the city must take the contorted position that Monroe’s fake degree was good enough at the time of his hire and whatever happens after that is irrelevant.