A Republican candidate for Florida State House is accused of falsifying a college diploma and posing with a fake degree in photos. Melissa Howard, who is seeking the GOP nomination for a seat in Florida’s House of Representatives 73rd District, said she graduated with a degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The political drama began when FLA News Online reported that Howard didn’t graduate from the college. Howard claimed the story to be false and posted a photo of herself and her mother with a framed diploma on Facebook.
The publication briefly retracted the story and published a correction, after the post. But, according to the Washington Post, the university then sent an email to Florida news outlets revealing that Howard didn’t graduate from the school like FLA News previously reported. The diploma in the photo is also reportedly a fake.
Manatee County leader Jonathan Bruce calls on Melissa Howard to drop out of #FL73 race https://t.co/uCvpVyMp7e #FlaPol pic.twitter.com/76WOAVpXsH
— Florida Politics (@Fla_Pol) August 11, 2018
A spokeswoman for the school told Huffington Post that the diploma “does not appear to be an accurate Miami University diploma.” She also said that Howard was studying retail between 1990 and 1994, but she never graduated.
The photographed degree suggests that Howard graduated with a degree not offered at the university. According to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Miami University doesn’t offer a bachelor of science in marketing. According to the spokeswoman who spoke with HuffPost, there is also a signature on the degree from a university official at the graduate school and not from the school where Howard claims to have earned her degree.
FLA News Online updated the article to state that the publication has reached out to the National Student Clearinghouse to confirm that the degree is fake. The organization verifies degrees and enrollment of students across the country.
Howard has yet to respond to the incident. It’s also not clear whether Howard will continue her campaign, in which she’s running against Tommy Gregory.