Berkeley/Wharton were part of his resume on the New School website and was included in news articles by the LA Times, and others.
It was also part of his resume published in news articles 20 years ago. (Still doesn’t mean it is true, but below is an example).
THE NEW PIONEERS
BILL ROBINSON
During the launching of his own label earlier this year, Robinson found two areas very difficult: Finding his design identity and relinquishing responsibilities. He feels that so many factors are involved in a new line, that if you don’t give responsibility to others, “It’s tough to find time to design.’ ...
(snip)
NORMAN HSU
Hsu, 35, was born and raised in Hong Kong, but when he came to the United States in 1969 to attend the University of California at Berkeley as a computer science major, he knew nothing about soft goods manufacturing. Even his MBA from the Wharton School didn’t help much when he and his Hong Kong-based partners formed Laveno Sportswear in San Francisco in 1982. “Luckily, we started Laveno when the economy was on the up side, and not too many companies were in the young men’s business. Still, we made a lot of stupied mistakes. For instance, we only had one size box. So, when we sent out only a few items, we would fill the rest of the box with foam. It wasn’t until we hired someone who knew warehousing and shipping that we found it was easier to cut the boxes down.’ Hsu, who left Laveno in 1984—a year before it went bankrupt—is now a principal in Anaheim, Calif.-based H Two O, Inc., and says he’s learned a lot since he moved from software to soft goods.
Exactly. That's the problem--and the architecture of Hsu's persona. It relies on the credulity of journalists and the clubby circles to do the work of replicating the lie. It's on the New School website, so the LA Times prints it. Yet John Kerry himself acknowledged that, no, no one there checked it out. The network newsreaders consider the LA Times solid sourcing, so they repeat it. It's a big circle jerk.
It was also part of his resume published in news articles 20 years ago. (Still doesn’t mean it is true, but below is an example).
Nice catch. A fashion industry journal would be the perfect place to seed the academic credentials story without fear of it actually being checked.
Again, I'm not saying either of his degrees are phony. Just saying that there's not sufficient info for media to be repeating it without better confirmation.