National Sun Yat-sen University on Wednesday said that it would revoke the master’s degree of Kao-hsiung City Councilor Jane Lee (李眉蓁), the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate in the Kaohsiung mayoral by-election on Saturday last week, as it has found that her thesis was largely plagiarized.
The announcement came after an investigation by an academic ethics review committee of the university’s College of Social Sciences, the school said in a press release.
All committee members, including three outside experts, agreed that Lee had plagiarized her thesis and unanimously voted in favor of revoking her degree to comply with the Degree Conferral Act (學位授予法), it said.
Photo: CNA
The university would also conduct an internal investigation into the role of Lee’s academic adviser, the school said, adding that it would also take steps to prevent future plagiarism attempts, including stricter supervision of thesis proposals.
Following the announcement, Lee said that she accepted the decision and hoped it would bring an end to the controversy.
Lee’s academic record came under scrutiny late last month, after she was nominated as the KMT candidate in the Kaohsiung’s mayoral by-election, which followed the ouster of former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT on June 6.
According to media reports during the campaign period, Lee allegedly plagiarized most of her 2008 master’s thesis when she was a student at the university’s Institute of Mainland China Studies.
While Lee initially said that the allegations were false and politically motivated, she later apologized for her “personal failings,” saying she was “renouncing” the degree.
In response, the university said that it had no guidelines for such a move.
In the by-election, Democratic Progressive Party candidate Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) won with 671,804 votes (70.03 percent), defeating Lee (25.90 percent) and Taiwan People’s Party candidate Wu Yi-jheng (吳益政), who received 4.06 percent of the votes.
Chen was yesterday confirmed as Kaohsiung mayor-elect by the Central Election Commission.
He is to take over from acting Kaohsiung Mayor Yang Ming-chou (楊明州) on Monday, and is to serve the reminder of the mayoral term that ends in December 2022.
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