Thuringia’s Minister President Mario Voigt has filed a lawsuit challenging the revocation of his doctoral degree by Chemnitz University of Technology (TU). The Chemnitz Administrative Court announced that the lawsuit was received on Friday. A date for a hearing has not yet been set.
Voigt has been under pressure over this matter for months. The CDU politician is accused of having conducted his research improperly in his 2008 dissertation titled “The American Presidential Election Campaign: George W. Bush vs. John F. Kerry,” published in 2008.
Earlier this year, it was reported that, following a lengthy review, TU Chemnitz had decided to revoke Voigt’s doctoral degree. The university rejected an appeal against this decision—whereupon Voigt filed a lawsuit in administrative court.
“In our view, the decision raises significant legal questions—particularly regarding the standard of evaluation and proportionality,” explained Voigt’s attorney. It is a unique occurrence for a university to revoke a doctoral degree after an “external, neutral expert has ruled that the conditions for revocation do not exist.”
