Overview

• On July 9, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education formally initiated procedures to revoke Kim Keon-hee’s teaching certificate and invited her to submit a response under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s procedural requirements.
• Sookmyung Women’s University stripped Kim’s 1999 master’s degree on June 24 after finding her thesis contained plagiarized material, nullifying the basis for her teaching credential.
• Kookmin University is reviewing whether to revoke Kim’s doctoral degree and has requested official confirmation of her master’s credential from Sookmyung.
• Sookmyung has said it cannot release the requested confirmation without Kim’s consent under the Personal Information Protection Act and has asked Kookmin for additional documentation.
• These steps highlight legal safeguards in academic accreditation reviews as part of a broader special counsel probe into allegations against the former first lady.