Plagiarism Leads To The Revocation Of Doctoral Degree Of Germany’s Top Science Politician

Germany’s education and research minister, Annette Schavan, has been stripped of her doctorate. Last week a group of scholars at the University of Düsseldorf voted 12-2 to revoke her academic title on the basis of evidence that she had plagiarized parts of her thesis. This is the latest in a controversy ignited last spring when an anonymous blogger accused Schavan of plagiarizing parts of her now-30-year-old philosophy thesis. Schavan has long denied the charges against her and had asked the University of Düsseldorf to investigate. She is the second Cabinet minister in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to be stripped of a doctorate because of plagiarism. In 2011, then-defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg stepped down after the University of Bayreuth revoked his law doctorate.