Carol Moseley Braun's Harvard Exaggeration: Claims 'Advanced Degree,' Has None

As she mounts a run for Chicago mayor, Carol Moseley Braun has an impressive resume behind her, including a term in the U.S. Senate and a stint as the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand.

One thing that's not on her resume: an Ivy League diploma. That's a fact that she seemed to have forgotten in a radio interview last week.

Speaking with Greg Jarrett on WGN last Wednesday morning, Braun was asked a question about the city's finances. Through a meandering response, she ended up talking about the schools, saying, "I'm a product of the Chicago Public Schools. I walked to school in the neighborhood in which I lived. I got a quality education that took me on to a law degree from the University of Chicago, and an advanced degree from Harvard."

Later on the show, as Chicago magazine pointed out, a caller named Jeffrey said he was impressed about her accomplishments, including that she "went to Harvard." Braun let the remark pass unaddressed.

But the Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn decided to do a little poking around. In fact, nowhere on Braun's online biographies is an "advanced degree from Harvard," although her bio from her organic food company Ambassador Organics mentions that she earned a "Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Illinois in 1969, and a law degree in 1972 for the University of Chicago."

What was she referring to? Well, in 2007, she was a visiting fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics. No degree was granted to her.

The campaign says Braun "misspoke."