University of Bayreuth’s President Rüdiger Bormann sees “zu Googleberg’s” letter to the University requesting that his doctorate be withdrawn as an admission of guilt says Welt Online. Whether the plagiarist could retain his academic title or not, was not his decision, but solely the responsibility of the Examination Board. “The request to withdraw his doctorate, does not relieve the Commission from making an assessment of the incident.”
In addition to the thousands of jokes now circulating about Guttenberg, the University of Bayreuth is also getting its share of criticism and ridicule. “The University with a special mailbox where inadvertently or unfairly acquired doctorates can be resubmitted anonymously. “
Bayreuth’s commission of self-regulation for science currently consists of Professors Stephan Rixen, Nuri Aksel, Wiebke Putz-Osterloh and Paul Rösch. “Cases like this have never happened”. Never during his term of office has the examination committee had to meet, protested President Bormann. Bormann was only appointed in 2009 but the Dean of the Faculty of Law and Economics, Markus Möstl also asserted “In Bayreuth university circles, no one can recall the denial of a doctoral degree”.
However, Borman admits that in the Law School theses have not always been checked for plagiarism. Computer programs to detect plagiarism would be used only for “suspicious” cases.
But there are many students at the University who are irritated and depressed. They are now questioning how such a set piece of work could have been awarded a “Summa cum laude” stamp. Students were concerned about the reputation of their degrees, accuses the student chairman Benjamin Horn. They fear, that as Bayreuth students they will be disadvantaged in their search for jobs.
And the University is obviously very sensitive to being accused of giving undue favours. They declared that the management had immediately checked and that the University had not received any donations from the Guttenberg family.
The University cannot escape some ridicule and loss of reputation. But as with all such cases where the actual award is less rigorous than the process to be proposed for an award of a degree, his supervisor for his doctorate bears a large part of the blame and cannot be immune to criticism.
The k2p blog 