Another German Politician Stripped of Doctorate

A prominent German politician has been stripped of her doctorate after her former university found she plagiarized parts of her dissertation. The University of Heidelberg announcement came a month after Silvana Koch-Mehrin quit as vice president of the European Parliament and resigned from the leadership board of her Free Democratic Party. The university says more than 120 passages were plagiarized, with material lifted from more than 30 publications.

Koch-Mehrin hasn't yet commented on the case against her. She said last month she was quitting her political posts because she didn't want to be a "target for attacks." In March, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg quit as German defense minister after it emerged that he also copied large parts of his thesis without attribution. He also was stripped of his doctorate. (More Germany stories.)