Posts Tagged ‘Annette Schavan’

German Education Minister to appeal against loss of her Doctorate

February 6, 2013
Bundesministerin Dr. Annette Schavan

Bundesministerin Dr. Annette Schavan (Photo credit: AndreasSchepers)

Update! 9th February

Annette Schavan has resigned.

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Dusseldorf University has not taken long after opening formal revocation proceedings to strip Annette Schavan – the German Minister for Education and Research- of her Doctorate for plagiarism.

BBC: 

The University of Duesseldorf’s philosophy faculty decided on Tuesday that she had carried out “a deliberate deception through plagiarism”.

The minister has denied the claims and said she will appeal.

An earlier plagiarism row brought an end to the political career of Germany’s defence minister in 2011.

Large parts of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg’s 2006 legal dissertations were found by Bayreuth University to have been copied and he stood down before it issued its damning verdict in May 2011.

Using the same words as Duesseldorf’s Heinrich Heine University, it concluded that he had “deliberately deceived”.

When Ms Schavan became the second minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to be accused of copying her doctorate, in this case by an anonymous blogger, she insisted she had never “knowingly falsely cited any sources” and promised to respond to the accusations.

But the faculty committee concluded that her work, which dealt with the formation of conscience, included a “substantial number of unaccredited direct quotes from other texts”.

In a statement declaring the doctorate invalid and withdrawing it from Ms Schavan, the faculty head Bruno Bleckmann said they had “decided by secret ballot, by 12 votes to two, with one abstention”. 

The minister herself, 57, was said to be on a five-day education and science co-operation trip to South Africa.. Education minister since 2005, she is described as a close colleague of Chancellor Merkel.

Her lawyers reportedly rejected the university’s ruling and said Ms Schavan would appeal.

When the university announced its inquiry, she said she had no intention of standing down.

But the investigation into one of Chancellor Merkel’s closest allies is seen as potentially awkward months before Germans vote in federal elections.

The popular German newspaper Bild said the news was a bitter blow to the chancellor, and wondered whether she would need to find a new education minister at the start of her election campaign.

Related:

Two years of self-imposed exile for zu Guttenberg

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Posted in Academic misconduct, Germany, Politics | Comments Off on German Education Minister to appeal against loss of her Doctorate

German Education and Research Minister’s dissertation in formal revocation proceedings

January 25, 2013

Yet another German politician’s dissertation is being questioned. But it is particularly ironic when the politician accused of plagiarism is the current German Minister for Education and Research and has been since 2005. Professor Debra Weber-Wulff reports:

Düsseldorf University to open formal revocation investigation

 After an almost six-hour-long meeting behind closed doors, the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Düsseldorf voted to open formal revocation proceedings on the dissertation of Annette Schavan, the current German Minister of Education and Research, as noted in a press release issued this evening. Since so many people are interested in this topic world-wide, I am translating it to English here:

In May 2012 a public allegation was raised that the doctoral thesis of Prof. Dr. Schavan contained plagiarism.  If we as a faculty find substantial evidence of  scientific misconduct, we must pursue it vigorously —  regardless of the person involved or their social position. There is no legal statute of limitations on such cases. 
The Faculty of Arts and Humanities must then determine if the doctorate was correctly granted at the time it was granted. 
As part of the process, the doctoral committee of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities conducted a preliminary investigation. They examined Schavan’s written thesis and obtained a statement from her on the situation. 
Based on the recommendation of the doctoral committee, I [the dean, Bruno Bleckmann] presented the question to the Faculty Board at today’s meeting as to whether or not we should proceed with a formal revocation investigation. 
The Faculty Board discussed all of the issues raised during the preliminary investigation in detail today. They voted by secret ballot with 14 votes in favor and one abstention to open a formal revocation investigation.  
In the coming weeks, the members of the Faculty Board will intensively deal with the documents prepared by the doctoral committee and the statement from the person in question. The next meeting of the Faculty Board is set for February 5, at which time the continuation of the revocation investigation will be on the agenda.  
I want to emphasize that the process is still open-ended at this point.

 

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Posted in Academic misconduct, Behaviour, Ethics, Germany, Politics | 1 Comment »