Hungarian president stripped of doctoral degree for plagiarism

Hungary’s Semmelweis University stripped President Pal Schmitt of his doctoral degree after deciding he’d copied most of his thesis 20 years earlier, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

Schmitt’s thesis “didn’t meet the ethical and professional criteria of scientific work,” Rector Tivadar Tulassay told reporters in Budapest in televised remarks on Wednesday.

The university’s highest ranking decision-making body, the Senate, repealed the politician’s title after a recommendation from the doctoral commission. Schmitt, who was returning from a conference in South Korea yesterday, was unavailable for comment, a spokeswoman at his office said.

A report by a fact-finding commission at the university, excerpts of which were released March 27, confirmed that 180 pages of Schmitt’s 215-page dissertation on sports were “partially identical” to another work, while another 17 pages were “completely identical” to a separate study, with neither receiving credit. It blamed the university for overlooking the similarities with the previous works.

Schmitt said March 28 that the panel’s report was a “sort of vindication” to him and that he didn’t think “for a minute” he’d resign as his doctorate wasn’t the reason he was elected as president, the MTI news service reported.

Schmitt, an Olympic champion fencer and member of the International Olympic Committee, has been an ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, signing every piece of legislation since assuming office in 2010. European Union objections to some of those laws, including new regulations on the central bank and the judiciary, have blocked Hungary’s talks on an International Monetary Fund loan.

Hungary’s four parliamentary opposition parties have urged Schmitt to resign. Orban’s ruling Fidesz party, where Schmitt was previously vice president, considers the matter “closed” after the commission’s report, spokeswoman Gabriella Selmeczi wrote March 27 by e-mail.

German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg quit last March over allegations he plagiarized passages of his doctoral thesis.
While Schmitt’s thesis included a bibliography, it didn’t cite sources and didn’t include footnotes or endnotes, according to the report, published on the university’s website. The commission didn’t use the word “plagiarism” in the three-page summary of its report.