BERLIN: Germany’s education minister Annette Schavan (57) has been stripped off her doctorate title after an inquiry confirmed plagiarism in her thesis, which she wrote 33 years ago.
The Heinrich-Heine University in Duesseldorf said on Tuesday that a special committee of its Philosophy Faculty came to the conclusion after more than nine months’ investigations that she had “deliberately and systematically” lifted passages from other publications for her dissertation without acknowledging them properly.
Therefore, the university decided to declare her 351-page thesis on “person and conscience” as invalid and to revoke her degree, Dean of the Philosophy Faculty, professor Bruno Bleckmann said.
There was no immediate reaction from Schavan to the university’s decision to revoke her doctorate title, but her lawyer said in a statement that she intends to challenge it in court. She is currently on a visit to South Africa. (PTI)