The National Endowment for the Humanities will conduct an investigation of three grants awarded to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the scholarly society in Cambridge, Mass., whose president, Leslie C. Berlowitz, has been accused of falsely claiming on various documents to hold a doctorate.
Judy Havemann, the communications director of the endowment, confirmed that it had given three grants totaling $1.2 million to support the academy’s initiatives between 2003 and 2013, and that all three applications â€" including at least one signed personally by Ms. Berlowitz â€" included the false information.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the academy attributed the mistakes, which were first reported by The Boston Globe, to a faulty resume created at some point by an unidentified staff member, and said it “is working to correct the information with relevant funding agencies.†But on Wednesday, its spokesman, Ray Howell, declined to specify which other funding authorities were involved, or to release a correct version of Ms. Berlowitz’s resume he said it had on file.
Ms. Havemann of the humanities endowment said she was not aware that anyone at the academy had reached out regarding possible errors in the grant application. A spokesman for the National Science Foundation, which confirmed having given at least two grants to the academy in recent years, also said she was unaware of any communication from the academy regarding possible problems with those applications. A federal database also showed grants to the academy from the Department of Energy.
