Universities honor homeschool diplomas (my kid has his BA, is working on his Masters and for each college all we did was sign an affidavit saying he graduated from high school and provide a copy of his curriculum to the schools.)
There’s got to be more to the story, IMHO, maybe the DOE is just ticked that these individuals didn’t “get with the program” and attend a government school.
I live in Tennessee, and unfortunately the story is true.