Causa Schavan: The Final Report

The final report by the dean of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Düsseldorf, Bruno Bleckmann, to the university's Academic Senate about the rescinding of the doctorate of Annette Schavan, the former German Minister of Education, has been leaked. The blog Causa Schavan has been publishing summaries of parts of this confidential document for the past ten days and has now put the entire final report online. It includes copies of letters and emails from leaders of top German academic associations, research organizations, and other bodies unknown outside of Germany but quite important for research financing that were addressed to the dean or the vice-dean.

Schavan submitted her thesis in 1980. In 2012 an anonymous blog, schavanplag, published an online documentation of substantial plagiarism in her thesis. In the aftermath of the doctorate of German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg being rescinded by the University of Bayreuth in 2011 and him stepping down as minister, Ms. Schavan had remarked that she was mortified by his plagiarism and was making no secret of her opinions. Another public plagiarism discussion erupted.

When the Faculty of Letters decided that there was sufficient suspicion to warrant opening an investigation, they found themselves the target of immense pressure, both public and (as can be seen in the final report) private from the many supporters of Ms. Schavan. Many misused their high offices to air their private opinions on the case that many found to be politically motivated.

The Faculty of Letters focused solely on the academic questions at hand and ignored the verbal abuse from the "titans of science" that only increased when the plagiarism documentation prepared by the vice-dean was leaked to the national press. The final report included the letter the vice-dean wrote detailing the precautions that he took so that the report would not be leaked.

The Faculty Board voted to rescind the doctorate. Ms. Schavan then stepped down as Minister of Education in order to take the university to court in the hopes of forcing them to revoke the rescinding of her doctorate on procedural grounds. The court, however, upheld the stance of the university. Ms. Schavan, now without a university degree, has since been sent as the German ambassador to the Holy See. 

If you read German, Dean Bleckmann's final report is a finely crafted and well-documented summary of the entire investigation and the wave of vituperation hurled at the dean and vice dean of the faculty in particular and the university in general. Bleckmann remarks ironically on p. 16 why he (a historian) has collected these documents:

Die zahlreichen verbalen Entgleisungen sind vielleicht dereinst für die historische Invektivenforschung von Interesse. (The extensive verbal harassment is perhaps of interest someday for historical research on invective.)

One reads of high-ranking German education luminaries and honorable retired professors offering up personal opinion and verbal abuse without bothering in the least to even study the materials available. In addition to the schavanplag blog and a legal expertise on the procedures to be followed that are publicly available, it turned out that (perhaps surprising for some) actual books and brochures were to be found detailing good academic practice at the time Ms. Schavan wrote her dissertation. The concept of delineating the beginning and end of the thoughts and/or words of others and giving a reference to the place the material to be found is shockingly not at all a recent convention. It also has nothing to do with available technology or the Internet or any other tangential topics, but is the means by which academics work: giving credit to the work of others, embedded within reasoning and findings of their own.

Bleckmann closes with an interesting observation (p. 22f):

Ich kann hinzufügen, dass auch an unserer Fakultät weitere Plagiatsverfahren anhängig sind, die entgegen der Ankündigung von Herrn Marquardt selbstverständlich auf der Grundlage der gleichen, durch das Gericht bestätigten Prinzipien durchgeführt werden. Die um die Wahrung aller wissenschaftlichen Regeln, Prinzipien und Leitsätze so ängstlich besorgten Wissenschaftsorganisationen haben an unseren weiteren derzeit anhängigen Prüfverfahren allerdings bis jetzt nicht das geringste Interesse gezeigt, so dass dieses wertvolle Korrektiv in Zukunft wohl leider entfallen wird. 

In short, as a translation of these two exquisite sentences into English would be quite difficult: There are other accusations of plagiarism currently being investigated at the Faculty of Letters in Düsseldorf, and they are being treated in exactly the same manner. However, to date none of the academic organizations that were so concerned with academic principles have shown any interest whatsoever in any of these cases.

The University of Düsseldorf stood up for academic freedom, a valuable and rare commodity in these times. 

Schavan court decision published

The German court in Düsseldorf that heard former German education minister Annette Schavan's arguments against the University of Düsseldorf rescinding her doctorate has published the written form of the judgement, just a few days after Schavan announced in a personal note that she will not be pursuing the case in the upper courts. Schavan's note makes it clear that she still does not understand what the problem really is about. She speaks of academic ethics and bemoans that so many upstanding academics had advised her that she was doing things right. They were all wrong.

Schavan's lawyers had loaded their guns with pretty much every halfwitted idea they could cobble together that was supposed to show that the university was wrong. The judge writing the judgement neatly and clearly knocks down every one, choosing examples from Schavan's own dissertation to illustrate point after point. The judgement is so thorough in its analysis, that it should convince anyone considering taking a university to court for rescinding a doctorate of the hopelessness of that undertaking. There are quite a number of nuggets in the decision that should force many other universities to have a hard look at their current practice of accepting problematic doctorates (¶129):

Dass einzelne Autoren (zum Beispiel Stadter und Fend) sich durch das Nichtzitieren ihrer Werke in der Dissertation der Klägerin nicht nachteilig betroffen fühlen, ist für die hier allein entscheidende Frage, nämlich ob die Klägerin getäuscht hat, offensichtlich ebenfalls irrelevant. (It is obviously irrelevant for the question at hand, which is whether the petitioner has deceived [the faculty], that some authors (for example Stadter and Fend) do not feel themselves to be detrimentally affected by their works not being quoted in the dissertation of the petitioner. 

Exactly. It has nothing to do with the feelings of this or that person, but whether any reader of the work could be unclear as to whether it is the author or some third person speaking at some point. This needs to be understood in universities such as Cottbus and Heidelberg, although the latter case also involves members of a working group "sharing" text.

The judge closes with the clear statement (¶238):

Lediglich vorsorglich ist anzumerken, dass auch im Übrigen keine Anhaltspunkte für mildere Maßnahmen ersichtlich sind. (As a precautionary measure it is observed that there is no evident basis for milder measures.)

The blog Causa Schavan has pointed discussion of the judgement, including making clear who the persons are who are alluded to "anonymously" in the text. The blog Schavanplag, which originally published the plagiarism documentation publicly under Schavan's name, also includes a discussion of the financial and legal problems the government will have if they try and put Schavan in place as the Ambassador to the Holy See.

I still have not found a comment from one of the Allianz organizations that came out so loudly, denouncing the University of Düsseldorf and defending Schavan. One would expect them as academics to state: Okay, we understand now, we were wrong. If a reader does find such a statement, please post it in the comments section here!

Germany's former Education Minister remains without doctorate

Former German Minister of Education, Annette Schavan, lost the court case today that she filed against the University of Düsseldorf with regards to the revocation of her doctorate in February 2013. She was convinced that the university had not followed correct procedures, and had asked the VG Düsseldorf to reinstate her doctorate for this reason.

The court was very clear in stating that the university had, indeed, followed correct procedures. All of the media in Germany are reporting, here are a few links (Spiegel - Tagesspiegel - University Düsseldorf press release - blogs Erbloggtes with Twitter highlights and poetry and Causa Schavan).

Schavan had communicated prior to the decision that she would continue on to the upper courts if she lost, after the decision she stated that she is examining her options. Many people are suggesting, via Twitter, that she should "do a [Uli] Hoeneß" and accept the court's decision. That would, indeed, be the best. In almost all cases in which a person who has had their doctorate rescinded took the university to court, the university has won. In the one case that I am aware of in which a university lost, they immediately began the procedures again and rescinded the doctorate properly.

Düsseldorf answers

If you read German, have a look at the two letters that the rector of the University Düsseldorf wrote in answer to two of the more distasteful publications about the Schavan case. Ludwig Winnacker used to be the head of the German research funding agency DFG and Kurt Biedenkopf was a politician and president of the private Dresden International University. Both published rather personal attacks in the media (linked from the page) that the rector Michael Piper answers quite elegantly - and just as publicly.

Schavan steps down

German chancellor Merkel has now accepted the resignation of a second cabinet member as the result of plagiarism scandals. Both gave a press conference at 14.00 on February 9, 2013 announcing the resignation of Schavan and announcing Prof. Dr. Johanna Wanka as the new minister of education.

Schavan pointed out that she is not stepping down on account of plagiarism, as she is still convinced that she did not plagiarize, but because she is suing a university as a private person. She quotes a German politician: First my office, then the party, then me.

This, of course, does not solve the plagiarism problem in Germany. I hope that universities now get serious about the problem.

Düsseldorf Rescinds Doctorate of Education Minister Schavan

The dean of the Arts and Humanities faculty of the University of Düsseldorf announced on the evening of February 5, 2013, that the faculty board voted 13:2 that the dissertation of Annette Schavan is a plagiarism. They also voted 12:2:1 to rescind her doctorate.

There will be a flurry of press reports coming tomorrow, as Schavan is the Minister of Education and Research in Germany.  Since her first academic degree was the doctorate, she now only has a high school diploma (Abitur). She can take the university to court within the next four weeks, if she chooses.

I will report more on the situation as it develops. The documentation of the plagiarism can be found at schavanplag. Current information from : Tagesschau - Spiegel - Süddeutsche Zeitung. Schavan's lawyers have announced that they will sue the university, according to Süddeutsche Zeitung.

The lawyers have published their reasoning for suing.  They are mainly stating that information leaked out about the process, and that their suggestion of obtaining a second opinion was not followed [although one could see the schavanplag blog as a first opinion and the university one as a second opinion]. And she had so many pages and footnotes, that bit of plagiarism is not bad and was not intentional. It seems to me that they are not aware of the legal cases on plagiarism that determined just the opposite: Even a bit of plagiarism is not acceptable in a doctorate.

Düsseldorf University to open formal revocation investigation

After an almost six-hour-long meeting behind closed doors, the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Düsseldorf voted to open formal revocation proceedings on the dissertation of Annette Schavan, the current German Minister of Education and Research, as noted in a press release issued this evening. Since so many people are interested in this topic world-wide, I am translating it to English here:

In May 2012 a public allegation was raised that the doctoral thesis of Prof. Dr. Schavan contained plagiarism.  If we as a faculty find substantial evidence of  scientific misconduct, we must pursue it vigorously --  regardless of the person involved or their social position. There is no legal statute of limitations on such cases.

The Faculty of Arts and Humanities must then determine if the doctorate was correctly granted at the time it was granted.

As part of the process, the doctoral committee of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities conducted a preliminary investigation. They examined Schavan's written thesis and obtained a statement from her on the situation.

Based on the recommendation of the doctoral committee, I [the dean, Bruno Bleckmann] presented the question to the Faculty Board at today's meeting as to whether or not we should proceed with a formal revocation investigation.

The Faculty Board discussed all of the issues raised during the preliminary investigation in detail today. They voted by secret ballot with 14 votes in favor and one abstention to open a formal revocation investigation. 

In the coming weeks, the members of the Faculty Board will intensively deal with the documents prepared by the doctoral committee and the statement from the person in question. The next meeting of the Faculty Board is set for February 5, at which time the continuation of the revocation investigation will be on the agenda. 

I want to emphasize that the process is still open-ended at this point.

For this reason I ask for your understanding that this statement, which details the current status and procedures, is all the information that I can provide at the present time.