NSF researcher loses job over questions about 1980s activism

Science : In August 2013 Valerie Barr, a computer science professor at Union College in Schenectady, New York, was hired by NSF as a program director in its division of undergraduate education. After she began working there, she was subject to a standard background check, performed by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), to evaluate “suitability.” In the initial interview, she replied no when asked whether she had been involved with any groups that had committed violence against the government. The OPM investigators claim she misrepresented her past because 30 years ago she had been involved with two nonviolent groups—the Women’s Committee Against Genocide and the New Movement in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence—that were connected with the May 19 Communist Organization , which had carried out several violent acts in the early 1980s. Subsequent interviews reaffirmed the OPM investigators’ belief that she had misrepresented her past, but Barr says she was cooperative and told the truth. On 25 July 2014, as a result of the OPM deeming Barr “unsuitable,” NSF told her it was canceling her three-year contract. Barr has written to NSF director Frances Córdova and her congressional representatives asking them to evaluate the OPM review process.