A Seoul National University professor who was fired for plagiarizing a student's paper and later reinstated after taking the case to the Supreme Court over procedural flaws has been dismissed again. The professor filed another suit seeking to overturn the dismissal, but lost in the first trial.
The 11th Division of the Seoul Administrative Court (Presiding Judge Kim Jun-young, Director General judge) said on Mar. 20 that it had rejected Professor Park of Seoul National University's Department of Korean Language and Literature's suit to overturn a decision by the Appeals Committee for Teachers under the Ministry of Education, and announced the ruling on the 18th.
Earlier, Park faced allegations of plagiarizing parts of the English abstract and sentences from a thesis by graduate student A, whom Park advised. A 2018 probe by the Seoul National University Research Integrity Committee (RINC) found that 12 of Park's works written between 2000 and 2015 constituted research misconduct and inappropriate research conduct of a significantly serious degree in violation of research integrity.
The SNU Faculty Disciplinary Committee voted to dismiss Park, and the SNU president notified Park of the dismissal in Dec. 2019. Park then petitioned the Appeals Committee for Teachers to overturn the dismissal, but the committee rejected the petition.
Park took the case to court, and the Seoul Administrative Court overturned the dismissal on procedural grounds, including defects in the composition of the Research Integrity Committee. The ruling was finalized by the Supreme Court in 2023, and Park was reinstated at SNU.
In 2023, the SNU Research Integrity Committee formed a special investigation panel of five members, including two outside experts, to reexamine Park's 12 papers. It concluded that 10 papers constituted research misconduct and one paper constituted inappropriate research conduct.
The SNU Faculty Disciplinary Committee voted in Oct. 2023 to dismiss Park, and the SNU president dismissed Park the same month. Park petitioned the Appeals Committee for Teachers, and the committee overturned the dismissal, saying "the Research Integrity Committee did not conduct a full investigation during the resolution process, and it did not sufficiently guarantee Park's opportunity to file an objection." SNU then filed an administrative suit seeking to overturn the committee's decision, but the court dismissed the case for lack of standing.
After Park returned to the lectern despite two dismissal attempts, SNU tried again in 2024. The Research Integrity Committee conducted a preliminary review and a full investigation in 2024 and found that 4 of Park's 12 papers constituted research misconduct and 7 constituted inappropriate research conduct. The SNU Faculty Disciplinary Committee voted in Sept. 2024 to dismiss Park, and the SNU president dismissed Park the following month.
Park sought the Appeals Committee for Teachers for a third time, asking it to overturn the dismissal. This time, the committee rejected Park's petition. Park then filed an administrative suit seeking to overturn the committee's rejection.
The Administrative Court also rejected Park's claim. The bench said, "It is reasonable to view the research misconduct as intentional," and found that "the dismissal was within the disciplinary range of 'dismissal-termination.'"