Delay in Defense for 'Kim Gunhee Thesis' Compensation Lawsuit... Kookmin University Fails to Submit Meeting Minutes and Other Materials

Kookmin University

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Byung-don] A lawsuit filed by graduates of Kookmin University against the school foundation Kookmin Hakwon, claiming damages for not properly investigating allegations of research misconduct by First Lady Kim Geon-hee, has been postponed due to the school's failure to submit materials.

According to the Seoul Southern District Court, the second hearing scheduled for the 18th under Judge Lee Jun-gu of Civil Division 11 was postponed to the 15th of next month at the request of the plaintiffs, who are the graduates.

The Kookmin University Alumni Emergency Response Committee requested the postponement, stating, "We planned to address the issues based on the minutes of the Kookmin University Research Ethics Committee Preliminary Investigation Committee meeting, but Kookmin University did not submit the documents," and the court accepted this request.

Along with this, the Emergency Response Committee plans to apply for an additional document submission order. The targets include the final report of the re-investigation committee and all verification materials related to the doctoral dissertation of former Saenuri Party (predecessor of the People Power Party) lawmaker Moon Dae-sung at Kookmin University.

The committee pointed out, "We suspect that the standards Kookmin University used to justify that (First Lady Kim's) dissertation had no issues?such as 'categories allowed within the academic domain' and 'ethical standards at the time of dissertation writing differ from now'?were applied as grounds for cancellation in the case of former lawmaker Moon's dissertation."

Since former lawmaker Moon's doctoral dissertation was published one semester earlier than First Lady Kim's but was judged as plagiarism, they intend to have the court examine the verification processes of both dissertations.

Earlier, the court accepted the plaintiff's application for a document submission order, mandating Kookmin University to submit the minutes of the Research Ethics Committee Preliminary Investigation Committee that investigated allegations of research misconduct in First Lady Kim's doctoral dissertation.

These minutes are known to include the decision-making process in which Kookmin University concluded last September that "the verification period has expired, so no main investigation will be conducted."

At the beginning of this month, Kookmin University announced that after completing the re-investigation of four papers related to First Lady Kim, it concluded that three papers, including the doctoral dissertation, did not constitute research misconduct. The remaining one paper was concluded as "verification impossible."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.