Plagiarism: German varsity strips off minister’s doctorate

Germany's Education minister Annette Schavan has been stripped off her doctorate title after an inquiry confirmed plagiarism in her thesis, which she wrote 33 years ago.

Schavan, 57, is the second prominent member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet to lose a doctorate following allegations of plagiarism in their doctoral thesis.

The Heinrich-Heine University in Duesseldorf said Tuesday night 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, Prof Bruno Bleckmann said in a statement.

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