Politics and Plagiarism: 4 Examples

In the past few years, a spate of politicians in Germany and other countries in Europe have been accused of plagiarizing their doctoral theses or other academic work. Here are four high-profile officials who have quit their jobs because of such allegations.

Annette Schavan resigned as Germany’s minister of research and education in February, after Heinrich Heine University revoked her doctorate. An academic committee said her 1980 thesis, Person and Conscience, had copied material from other publications without proper attribution. She has denied any academic misconduct and has vowed to sue the institution to get her degree back.

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After the law school at the University of Bayreuth stripped him of his Ph.D., Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg stepped down in 2011 as Germany’s defense minister. Since then he has admitted copying parts of his thesis on constitutional law, a misdeed that he blames on his excessive workload at the time. He is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington.

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Pal Schmitt resigned as Hungary’s president, a largely ceremonial post, in 2012. A panel at Semmelweis University said his 1992 work on international sports contained parts that were identical to the content of other papers. When the charges were first made, Mr. Schmitt denied any wrongdoing, saying they had been trumped up by political adversaries and were meant to undermine his position as a member of the International Olympic Committee.

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In 2012, Ioan Mang, Romania’s minister of education and research, was accused of copying the work of academics from Israel, Japan, and Taiwan in several scientific papers. Mr. Mang, a computer scientist, resigned in May. He had said that the charges were politically motivated.