The decision to revoke Kim Keon-hee's master's and doctoral degrees, reached after four years of silence, can hardly escape criticism that it's more about "kowtowing to power" than uncovering the truth. On June 24th, Sookmyung Women's University announced the revocation of Kim's master's thesis, and consequently, Kookmin University also stated its intention to begin procedures to revoke her doctoral degree. This comes approximately four years after suspicions of plagiarism in Kim's theses first emerged when Yoon Suk-yeol rose as a presidential candidate.
Kim Kyung-han, head of the National Association of Professors for Democratic Private Schools, repeatedly expressed his "dismay," pointing out that this degree revocation is based on a formalistic logic of "procedural flaws" rather than "substance." In 2021, then-candidate Yoon stated, "If it's academically plagiarism, it should be revoked," and "If the plagiarism rate is over 20%, my wife, given her character, would voluntarily return it." Kim herself also apologized, saying "there were mistakes," but the actual degree revocation occurred two years after President Yoon took office.
Kowtowing to Power? Universities' 'Delayed Response'
Kim Kyung-han strongly criticized the universities' degree revocations as a result of pandering to power. Regarding Sookmyung Women's University's excuse that thesis revocation regulations were only established in 2015, requiring them to amend their academic regulations to revoke a 1999 thesis, he argued, "They were told how to do it long ago, but they delayed until the government changed, then amended the regulations and revoked it." Despite Moon Si-yeon, who took office as Sookmyung Women's University President in June of last year, campaigning on a promise to "thoroughly verify the plagiarism allegations of First Lady Kim Keon-hee," the Research Integrity Committee (RIC) reportedly dragged its feet by indefinitely extending its conclusion. Kim asserted that the president, RIC, and graduate school all shifted responsibility, claiming, "There's no other reason than that they were very heavily pandering to power."
Kookmin University's method of doctoral degree revocation is drawing even greater criticism. In August 2022, Kookmin University's own verification results reached an unclear conclusion that "three papers were not plagiarism and one was unjudgable." However, this time, with the master's degree revoked, they summarily cancelled the doctoral degree citing a lack of qualification. Kim Kyung-han stated, "In a normal process, Kookmin University should have first said, 'This is plagiarism, so we will revoke the doctorate,'" strongly criticizing Kookmin University's current stance by comparing it to their past precedent of immediately revoking then-Assemblyman Moon Dae-sung's doctoral degree.
Beyond 'Plagiarism' to 'Embezzlement'... Truth Revealed Through Manual Labor
The laughable circumstance behind Kookmin University's "not plagiarism" conclusion for Kim Keon-hee's thesis was that it contained so few references that it was difficult for plagiarism detection software to find. Therefore, the "Pan-Academic National Verification Team" manually compared each sentence and each word segment to verify plagiarism. Kim Kyung-han stated, "It's beyond the level where you can say 'X% plagiarism rate'," adding, "It was a level of embezzlement, where all sorts of writings from other people's theses, blogs, and articles were copied verbatim." He further noted that even parts that were cited were often inaccurate.
Especially when the controversy erupted, it was revealed that the doctoral thesis was converted to an image file instead of a PDF, leading the verification team to print the thesis directly, manually type it into a document, and then conduct the verification work. This raised suspicions that Kim Keon-hee's side might have tried to obstruct the verification process.
Emphasizing Academic Responsibility, Not Degree Peddling
Kim Kyung-han asserted, "The Kim Keon-hee thesis incident is clear evidence that our universities failed throughout the entire process, from thesis guidance, writing, examination, presentation, and academic society review and journal publication decisions, to the thesis revocation." He criticized that even if special graduate schools are criticized for "degree peddling," they should at least maintain a minimum academic standard, and that despite having enjoyed significant benefits such as being a part-time lecturer, adjunct professor, and involved in exhibition projects through her doctoral degree, she seemed unwilling to take responsibility.
Kim urged that through this incident, Korean academia must seriously confront research ethics issues and reflect deeply, stating his plan to compile the data from this incident into a white paper. He also pointed out that Kim Keon-hee's past apology was perfunctory, emphasizing that she should specifically apologize to victims like Sookmyung University Professor Koo Yeon-sang. Acknowledging that expectations for universities and professors have been significantly shattered by this incident, he expressed his shame as an academic.
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