Friday, March 30, 2012

Plagiarism in High Places: Hungarian President Loses His PhD


Remember The Economist story -- "He copied, but he's not a plagiarist"? The Budapest Times reports:

The rector of Budapest’s Semmelweis Medical University announced on Thursday evening that its senate had voted overwhelmingly, 33 to four, in favour of withdrawing the doctorate awarded to the president in 1992. Tivadar Tulassay said Schmitt’s dissertation had failed to meet either academic or ethical standards. This came two days after a fact-finding committee, following up press reports, concluded that almost all of the 215-page thesis had been copied, much of it verbatim, from other academic texts. [Bold emphasis added]

The Wikipedia entry has a lot of information and background on the scandal.

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Update (3 April 2012): Pál Schmitt has resigned, "saying the controversy over allegations that he plagiarized his doctoral dissertation was dividing the nation".

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