'Poor Verification of Teacher Recommendations in Student Records' Konkuk University Wins Lawsuit to Cancel Ministry of Education Disciplinary Action

On July 20th, at COEX Hall A in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, students and parents are visiting booths at the '2023 Academic Year Early Admission University Information Fair' hosted by the Korea Council for University Education. / Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] A court ruling has found that the Ministry of Education's disciplinary action demanding "severe punishment of responsible personnel" against Konkuk University, where the similarity verification of teacher recommendation letters in the student comprehensive admission process was found to be inadequate, was unjust.

According to the court on the 21st, the Seoul Administrative Court Administrative Division 8 (Presiding Judge Lee Jeonghee) recently ruled in favor of the plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by Konkuk University against the Minister of Education seeking cancellation of the disciplinary demand.

Previously, in November 2019, the Ministry of Education conducted a special audit on six universities, including Konkuk University, for the 2018-2019 student comprehensive admission process. In the 2018 academic year early admission 'KU School Recommendation Admission,' Konkuk University was notified by the Korea Council for University Education (KCUE) that among 98 applicants, 80 had teacher recommendation letters with a suspicious similarity level (20~529%), and 18 had a risky similarity level (over 50%). However, it was found that Konkuk University did not submit this issue as an agenda item to the Student Comprehensive Admission Review Committee. The Ministry of Education demanded disciplinary action against the responsible personnel.

Among the 80 students with suspicious similarity levels, 20 were ultimately admitted, and among the 18 students with risky similarity levels, 4 were admitted. Subsequently, the teachers who wrote recommendation letters for the 24 admitted students all submitted statements of explanation at Konkuk University's request. The Ministry of Education notified Konkuk University to take measures according to the plan for similarity verification processing after review by the committee. Konkuk University maintained the list of admitted students during the re-verification and abolished this system starting from the 2020 admission year.

The first trial court judged that the Ministry of Education's demand for disciplinary action was unjust. The court stated, "Although the grounds for disciplinary action under the former Private School Act are recognized, immediately demanding severe punishment for the responsible teachers was an abuse and deviation of discretionary power." It further ruled, "Except for the third-stage final review procedure, all other related procedures can be considered to have been carried out, and it is difficult to conclude that the similarity verification procedure was completely neglected."

The court explained, "While recognizing that there were cases where plagiarism was an issue after the KCUE notification, the plaintiff practically decided how to handle recommendation letters with high similarity by comprehensively evaluating factors such as the limited number of teachers having to write multiple recommendation letters for many students within a short period, the prohibition on teachers from including students' language scores or external awards, and the fact that evaluations are mainly based on activities within the school commonly undertaken by many students, which could lead to similar expressions in the letters."

Additionally, the court added, "Considering that teachers submitted statements of explanation and that there was no change in admitted students after re-verification, it is difficult to conclude that the committee's partial inadequacy in the verification process significantly undermined the reliability of application documents or infringed on a fair admission procedure." The Ministry of Education did not appeal, so the ruling became final.

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