“Deliberately Deceived”
University withdraws doctorate from CDU European politicians
11/07/2022, 4:50 p.m
Sven Simon, a Member of the European Parliament, is said to have “essentially” adopted foreign texts in his doctoral thesis without adequately labeling them. The University of Gießen therefore wants to deprive the CDU politician of his title. He speaks of damage to his reputation.
The doctoral committee of the University of Gießen has decided to revoke the doctoral title of the CDU MEP and international law professor Sven Simon. In his dissertation from 2009, Simon “deliberately deceived to a significant extent by not sufficiently disclosing the source of the transfer of foreign texts,” said the university about the decision. In view of the seriousness of the violations, the title should be revoked after weighing up all conflicting interests. The JLU said that Simon had lodged an objection to the committee’s decision, which had already been received. “The process is therefore not yet complete at this point in time.”
The 44-year-old has held the professorship for international law and European law with public law at the University of Marburg since 2016. He has been a member of the European Parliament for the CDU since 2019. In a personal statement, Simon dismissed the allegations against his dissertation as unfounded. “The decision of the doctoral committee is based on an incorrect application of the law – in particular, there is a lack of any standard setting,” he explained.
He referred, among other things, to a statement by three Marburg law professors, who described the decision as “entirely inappropriate”. In addition, Simon quoted his supervisor, the Giessen international law expert Thilo Marauhn, who continues to describe the dissertation as one of the best that he has supervised to date. He considers the dissertation committee’s accusation to be unfounded. “I have no understanding for the associated damage to my reputation,” wrote Marauhn, according to Simon.