[News Today] Kim Keon-hee's master's degree revoked

[LEAD]
Sookmyung Women's University has revoked former first lady Kim Keon-hee's master's degree, three years after launching a plagiarism probe. With the degree canceled, Kookmin University has begun procedures to revoke her doctorate, which she earned in 2008.

[REPORT]
This is the dissertation former first lady Kim Keon-hee submitted to Sookmyung Women’s University graduate school of education in 1999.

She studied the traits of works by the artist Paul Klee.

But allegations surfaced in 2021 that she put together parts of several other papers on the same topic.

A comparison shows that some sentences are copied without proper citation.

In one case, she plagiarized an entire paragraph.

An alumni group of the university, after its own review, found a plagiarism rate of over 50% and requested an investigation from the school in 2022.

The university concluded the thesis was plagiarized after a research integrity committee review and revoked Kim’s master’s degree.

This comes three years after the investigation began.

But the school did not say why the probe took so long.

Yoo Young-joo / Head, Sookmyung Women's Univ. alumni group
It's more convincing if the plagiarism rate was disclosed to support the decision to revoke the degree. The school should also apologize for delay.

With her master's degree revoked, a process to also revoke her doctorate degree she received from Kookmin University in 2008 has also begun.

This is because under the Higher Education Act, cancellation of a master’s degree invalidates one's admission to a Ph.D. program.

Kookmin University said it will send a letter to Sookmyung Women's University to verify the facts.

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