Plagiarism can be found on 70 percent of all text pages in the habilitation of the Mainz sociologist Marina Hennig. Everyone can read about this in a documentation on the "VroniPlag Wiki" platform.

In April 2017, the documentation was published and reported to the President of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU). It was there that Hennig received her teaching qualification. However, the allegations have not been examined in these six years: no commission, no procedure, no public statements. This is also currently the case, as the university confirmed at the request of the F.A.Z. However, one of our questions remained completely unanswered by the HU, it reads: "But isn't it the case that, in order to ensure the credibility of science and publications, [an examination] should be carried out if there is serious suspicion – as in the present case? After all, it's also about preventing plagiarism from perpetuating itself in science." The HU is silent on this topic.

Initially, the university had refrained from examining the habilitation because Hennig had also plagiarized her doctoral thesis, which was also submitted to HU. As a result, the HU "only" wanted to withdraw the doctoral degree, since according to Berlin state law the teaching qualification would have been omitted. Hennig is Professor of Sociology at the University of Mainz. She might have had to give up her professorship with the discontinuation of her doctoral degree. But that hasn't happened to date. The University of Mainz is not examining the case at all, although it could do so for reasons of scientific ethics, disciplinary and legal reasons (suspicion of employment fraud) and, according to some lawyers, even should. It is better to leave the exam to the colleagues from Berlin. There, Hennig's doctoral degree was revoked, but formal errors were made, so that the proceedings before the administrative court did not stand. Hennig prevailed with a lawsuit.

Years of litigation

Without the withdrawal of a doctoral degree, however, the teaching qualification also remains. According to the HU, a second procedure regarding the dissertation is "currently being prepared". Until a final decision is made, Hennig will probably be retired. Due to a lack of personal contribution to scientific qualification work, she would never have been allowed to work as a professor for decades.

So this is the situation: The University of Mainz does nothing with reference to the Humboldt University; the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin makes legal errors in one procedure (for the dissertation) and refuses to start the other procedure (for the habilitation) at all. All this is happening in one of only two known cases of double plagiarism (in dissertation and habilitation) in the history of German science, which has caused a sensation in the media and caused parliamentary questions from opposition members of both the Berlin House of Representatives and the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament.

Der Spiegel also reported on the accusation that the sociologist had copied verbatim from students' seminar papers written under her direction. Despite all this, the deeds remain without consequences. The reasons for this remain obscure. We don't want to speculate at this point, just point out that there have already been plagiarism cases in the state of Berlin, which were rolled up by universities within a few months and closed shortly thereafter.