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.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS