German Science Minister Stripped of Her PhD

An anonymous reader writes "In a move likely to have major political implications, the University of Düsseldorf has revoked the doctoral degree of Germany's science and education minister, Annette Schavan. The committee investigating allegations of plagiarism came to the conclusion that she 'systematically and deliberately claimed as her own intellectual achievements which she had in fact not produced herself.' Schavan wants to appeal the decision in court and has not resigned from her post so far."

Comments

PhD's in Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a PhD in germany is a status symbol more than anything. I expect this type of thing to happen more often since plagiarism is the easiest way to achieve this status symbol.

Re:PhD's in Germany

[grumpy_technologist]

That's a sweeping and unfair generalization.

Re:PhD's in Germany

[vlm]

Google search for "That's a sweeping and unfair generalization." shows 14 results... Looks like you've got some explaining to do, Mr "I don't use footnotes", or you're about to be stripped of your second post achievement.

Now I'm doing it right, put my post in quotes and google for it and "did not match any documents" is the result.

Re:PhD's in Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

You are missing the crux of the issue: this completely debunks AGW.

Re:PhD's in Germany

[wonkey_monkey]

People will soon find a way to avoid their sentences returning any search results purple monkey dishwasher.

Re:PhD's in Germany

[Swiper]

Not in Germany, Whilst I have colleagues who don't care about being addressed as "Dr", most insist on having their title mentioned at every possible opportunity. Having done my doctorate in the UK, I can assure you that it's an entirely different perception and social climate. The difference does tend to be based on the type of doctorate, the DPhil in Germany is the one you can get by just spouting your mind instead of doing any actual research, and they are the ones who tend to insist on the title.

someone had to say it

[Anonymous Coward]

"Annette Schavan stripped"

do NOT want!

Re:someone had to say it

[Moses48]

I read this "for her PhD" instead of "of her PhD". I was really confused how that works.

Re:someone had to say it

[antek9]

Oh my, that depends entirely on context. Dunno if it will make you happy, but do a search on 'Doktorspiele'.

Oh, the irony!!

[MightyMait]

"A university committee yesterday evening confirmed accusations, first aired last May, of plagiarism in Schavan’s ethical-philosophical dissertation entitled ‘People and conscience — studies on the conditions, necessity and requirements for formation of conscience today’."

Naturally!!

Re:Oh, the irony!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the irony gets even better.: A year ago she publicly humiliated another politician because of his shoddy "copy & paste" PhD. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-press-review-of-the-annette-schavan-plagiarism-scandal-a-881783.html

Re:Oh, the irony!!

[Trailer Trash]

Yeah, she was ragging on his copy/paste skills, not the fact that he copied and pasted his PhD. Let's face it, she's apparently an expert in copy/paste PhD work.

She'll have to wait

[Ukab the Great]

Until she can copy off someone else's letter of appeal.

Re:She'll have to wait

[icebike]

Until she can copy off someone else's letter of appeal.

No problem, shes studying for her law degree right now.
Started yesterday, should be done tomorrow.

Did she copy Lobachevsky?

[eddy_crim]

No one wil ever say it better!
The great Tom Lehrer

Re:Did she copy Lobachevsky?

[slew]

Maybe...

She went to university in Bonn
Whose sister city is ....Minsk!

(of course Tom Leher copied from Danny Kaye's Stanislavsky sketch from the Jack Benny show, but he gave him credit)

Re:Smear campaign or missing job qualification?

[h4rr4r]

It is now a smear campaign to point out someone is a cheater and a liar?

She has had many years to admit this. She chose not to.

Re:Smear campaign or missing job qualification?

[Chris Mattern]

When the University officially strips you of your degree, it's moved from "smear campaign" to "substantiated charges".

She wouldn't be the first

[excelsior_gr]

Defense Minister Guttenberg resigned from his post for the exact same reason a while back. Getting a PhD in Germany is a hardship and I can well imagine that some people would like to "cut some corners" to reach their goal.

Re:She wouldn't be the first

[WoOS]

Mr. Guttenberg resigned because his whole Ph.D. - done outside the university while he was already a politician - was a lousy Copy&Paste job including copying papers done by the research arm of the parliament for him. Especially also in places where he claimed original thought.

Mrs. Schavan did the Ph.D. at the university before she started her career and seemingly ca. 15 years before she went into heavy politics. As far as I understand her Ph.D. was revoked because of incorrect citations (i.e. she named sources but not marked text as direct citation) in her literature section.

The only commonality is that both lost their Ph.D..

Re:She wouldn't be the first

[Tom]

No, if you actually follow the university announcement and the evidence, it turns out that her actions are considerably worse than Guttenbergs.

He was lousy even in his plagiarism. She intentionally rephrased and covered up where the copied from. Guttenberg did a copy&paste job - Schavan copied and then rephrased so if you would put the phrase into a search engine, it would come up empty. But she only changed words, she didn't add any original thoughts.

That's plagiarism at its worst - intentional and deceitful.

Re:"has not resigned from her post so far."

[Meeni]

Society doesn't value lying, cheating and deceptive practices for political carriers. At least not openly. Be careful of what you want. It's not because it's all commonplace behind the scene, that you want it to become the new normal, as it will just make it another grade worse.

Re:She was stripped?

[tekrat]

Just found out what she looks like..... Never mind. Can we strip the German Chick from Top Gear instead? Sabine Schmitt?

Meanwhile in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

current Committee on Science, Space and Technology member Paul Broun...

" embryology, evolution, and the Big Bang are "lies straight from the Pit of Hell ... lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior."

former Committee on Science, Space and Technology member Todd Akin...

"If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. "
on Evolution - "I don’t see it as even as a matter of science, because I don’t know if you can prove one or the other."

-------
I'd love to see that kind of zeal put on the backgrounds of US politicians.

Bribes-for-PhD's scams reported in Germany.

[Andy Prough]

There are some very interesting articles on the "bribes-for-PhD" scam in Germany: In 2008 Time Magazine reported on an investigation into around 100 cases of bribes for PhDs: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1919339,00.html. One blogger claims 500 to 700 PhD's are illegitimately "purchased" each year by aggressive career-climbing German lawyers, managers and politicians. The blogger provides numerous citations: http://ktwop.wordpress.com/tag/guttenberg-fraud/. In 2011, the DW German news outlet called some German PhD's "cut and paste": http://www.dw.de/academic-consultants-target-phd-wannabes/a-14852460-1.

Obligatory Merkel Titanic image

[12WTF$]

Plagiatsvorwürfe gegen Merkel!

http://www.titanic-magazin.de/typo3temp/pics/b08249c126.jpg

should censure U of Dusseldorf too

[bzipitidoo]

How does a university not know a dissertation is full of plagiarism? Only by wearing blinders!

Dissertations are supposed to be carefully checked by at least 3 professors. Her major professor and committee was at best rubber stamping her work without bothering to check anything. Or they were so incompetent or lazy that none were aware of whole areas of work in their field? How else to explain a failure to recognize plagiarism? And how could they not notice that a student's ability and knowledge had wide gaps? Shop talk should have exposed her as a fraud long before she got anywhere near graduation. Also, she may have a history of cheating, unless she earned a B.S. and M.S. honestly, and only resorted to cheating for the PhD? I suppose that could happen-- someone who had an easy time in school and never experienced failure might be tempted when facing it for the first time.

So how could this happen? They were deliberately overlooking serious problems because it suited them in some way. If it wasn't outright bribes and implied threats, as in, her family was a large donor who might not wish to donate any more if she didn't receive the degree, it could be that the department or school was too eager to boost their numbers.

This kind of crap is a black mark for everyone who legitimately earned a PhD.

Re:should censure U of Dusseldorf too

[WoOS]

How does a university not know a dissertation is full of plagiarism? [...] So how could this happen?

A) The Ph.D. thesis in question was submitted 1980. Long before computer checks and internet groups gathering to check Ph.D.s.
B) It was not "full of plagiarism". You might want to fetch (non-marked) copy from the net and find the sentences in question before you accuse others of intent.

Re:should censure U of Dusseldorf too

[bzipitidoo]

I don't read German, so unless there's an English translation, I'll have to pass on reading a copy. Are you speaking from knowledge or have you not read it either?

I'm not doing the accusing. Schavan herself admitted "careless mistakes". She's not denying that the dissertation has problems! She's only trying to wiggle out of characterizing those "mistakes" as plagiarism. Most damning is that the university agreed that what she did is indeed plagiarism. Revoking a degree, and not just any degree but the PhD of an important official, is such an unusual and damaging move-- no university wants to admit they messed up and take a reputation hit-- that I'm satisfied they wouldn't do it unless they were certain. Likely the only question they were really debating when voting on the matter is whether it would be less trouble to just ignore the whole thing and let her keep her undeserved degree. But it's not just her-- academia has to constantly watch for and take action against cheating, or they lose their reputation. Undoubtedly some didn't want to do anything, but they felt they had to act on this matter. Since it was done in 1980 as you pointed out, it's likely her entire committee is retired or dead, so the university will not have to confront them which makes it easier to act. There's not as much to do.

One of the scarier things about working on a dissertation is being warned to keep it quiet until the degree has been granted, because if you don't, it's virtually certain it will be stolen. They may patent it, or they may use it as their own dissertation and either get a degree from a diploma mill, or more likely use it to fool a real university. Yes, cheating is that rife. Her lawsuit sounds more like a desperation move to drag things out or bully or tire the opposition into giving up, rather than a serious attempt to exonerate herself by raising good points. Lance Armstrong is only coming clean because he has no plausible denials left. Texas A&M didn't screw up or lie about George Deutsch having a degree in journalism, he took it upon himself to do that. Hwang Woo-suk got away with misconduct for a while because he was a trusted insider.

If her dissertation isn't "full of" plagiarism, the most important part, the new findings, was not her own work. If that wasn't so, it would be easy to fix. Just add a few more citations. Instead, it was plagiarized, and the plagiarism irreparably compromises the integrity of the work. She is a plagiarist.

Re:She was stripped?

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Can we strip the German Chick from Top Gear instead? Sabine Schmitt?

Yes please. Sabine Schmitz. My moter always warned me about fast women.

Re:She was stripped?

[macraig]

Would you even think to make that joke if Schavan was a man? Food for thought.

Re:Smear campaign or missing job qualification?

[Anonymous Coward]

What accused? She's already been found guilty. The summary alone specifically says her PhD has been revoked.

Re:Smear campaign or missing job qualification?

[moronoxyd]

Yes, people from her party claimed that the University didn't handle the case properly.
Just as people from opposing parties said the opposite.

This is just the usual politics.

The decision to strip her of her title was made by a commission with 15 or 16 members, with 2 opposing and 1 abstention.

So far, the German courts always upheld such decisions from Universities.

Mrs. Schavan has the right to appeal the decision. Doesn't mean she will get the result she's looking for.

Re:Smear campaign or missing job qualification?

[Tom]

Whether she's doing a good job has relatively little to do with any titles she might now not hold any more.

Oh yes, it does. She's the minister for education and science.

I could accept someone in that position who doesn't have an academic title. It would be a bit odd, but hey, we've had defense ministers who didn't go to the army (back when military service was still compulsory).

But one who had acquired an undeserved academic title through intentional deceit? Sorry, that's a slap in the face for everyone who worked hard on their titles, and such a person can not be the one in charge of the educational system and academia.