Annette Schavan was a government minister, responsible till 2013 for the Education and Research portfolio. She received a doctorate from Düsseldorf university in 1980.[6] In May 2012 allegations surfaced that Schavan's doctoral dissertation had been excessively plagiaristic.[7] Although the allegations were anonymous, the case captured a place in the news agenda and the responsible "doctoral committee" at the University of Düsseldorf undertook a five-month investigation of the matter. The committee was chaired by the vice-dean of the university's Philosophy Faculty, Stefan Rohrbacher. Rohrbacher took the lead in drafting the committee's report: its conclusions were widely reported, giving Rohrbacher a hitherto improbably high public profile.[2] Schavan's doctoral dissertation was determined to reflect a "plagiarising approach" (eine "plagiierende Vorgehensweise") and "intent to deceive" ("leitende Täuschungsabsicht"). The report's issuance was upstaged by its premature leaking, which unleashed a new wave of public discussion and criticism, some of it directed against Rohrbacher's committee.[6] There were those who felt the extent of Schavan's plagiarism had been far less flagrant than that in the recent case of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, and that she was being judged harshly more because of her own robust condemnation of zu Guttenberg than on the basis of analysis of her own work. Helmut Schwarz of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation was critical of the procedure followed by university committee, complaining that there had been no "outsider" member of it, pointing out that Schavan had not been given sufficient opportunity to state her own case, and implying that Stefan Rohrbacher faced a clear conflict of interest in the matter, since he himself had first scrutinised the dissertation under discussion and then chaired the committee that evaluated his findings, while simultaneously holding a top position within the faculty for which the committee had prepared its report.[8] Rohrbacher did not involve himself in the media storm, but others were less reticent in expressing support for the university's position. Bernhard Kempen, long-standing president of the German Universities Association ("Deutscher Hochschulverband"), insisted that Schavan, like anyone else confronting serious plagiarism allegations, deserved a fair process, and warned against a premature media acquittal orchestrated by "politicians and fringe academics". The leaking of the committee's draft report resulted from the actions of one individual and certainly could not be blamed on Rohrbacher. Factually unsupported criticisms and procedural recommendations plastered across the media displayed an unjustified lack of respect for the University of Düsseldorf.[9]
Shrill media posturing directed against Rohrbacher and against the procedural practices of Düsseldorf University certainly did nothing to change the proper legal basis that underpinned the exercise, and if it was intended that the public criticisms should dissuade the university from revoking Schavan's doctorate, then the critics failed in their objective. Schavan's subsequent decision to appeal against the university's decision in the district administrative court also failed.[10] The court ruled that she had failed to establish the procedural errors alleged.[10] Without exception, the court backed the findings of plagiarism and Rohrbacher's assessment of them. The doctoral committee decision accordingly received judicial endorsement.[11]
