German education minister quits amid plagiarism accusations

Germany’s education minister resigned Saturday after a university decided to withdraw her doctorate, finding that she plagiarized parts of her thesis.


On Tuesday, Duesseldorf’s Heinrich Heine University decided to revoke Schavan’s doctorate following a review of her 1980 thesis, which dealt with the formation of conscience. The review was undertaken after an anonymous blogger last year raised allegations of plagiarism, which the minister denies.

"I will not accept this decision - I neither copied nor deceived in my dissertation," she told reporters, speaking alongside Merkel at a brief news conference. "The accusations ... hurt me deeply."