One candidate said his opponent lied on his resume.
The other said it was a simple case of misinterpretation.
It's a case of political he-said-she-said, and this time Penn is smack in the middle.
Last week, Greg Ball, the Republican candidate running for General Assembly in New York's 99th district, accused Democratic candidate Ken Harper of claiming in campaign literature that he graduated from Penn in 1982 despite his dropping out prior to earning a degree.
It's true that Harper didn't graduate; both Harper and University spokeswoman Lori Doyle confirmed that Harper attended Penn from 1978 until 1982 but never got his diploma.
But Harper says the claim that he intentionally misled voters is completely false and is a "disappointing" move on the part of his opponent.
In fact, he attended Penn from 1978 to 1982, majoring in English, but dropped out about six credits short of graduation after running out of money, Harper said.
He added that he made a promise to his since-deceased mother to eventually complete his degree at the University, where he was a cartoonist for The Daily Pennsylvanian, a brother of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, a member in the Penn Band and an inductee into both Mask and Wig and Kite and Key.
Penn "has an awful lot of my money," Harper said. "I'd like to go back."
But because he hasn't yet graduated, Harper said that he has always listed his education as "English, 1978-82, University of Pennsylvania."
Ball, however, has pointed to published and online versions of the League of Women Voters guide that listed Harper as having graduated with a B.A. in English in 1982.
But Harper says it was "a simple clerical error on the part of the league."
And that may in fact be the case. After the controversy erupted, Noreen Fisher, voter service coordinator of Westchester County's League of Women Voters, sent an e-mail to Harper apologizing for the published misinformation, and taking the blame. The league has since changed the information in its voting guides to accurately represent Harper's educational background.
Still, Ball's campaign is calling for a public apology from Harper, saying that he lied to voters by not remedying the problem earlier. Harper maintains that the allegations are a non-issue and a "false attack on my integrity."
