(ATR) The South Korean IOC member facing an ethics inquiry vows to restore his reputation.
"As an Olympian and gold medalist, you know that I AM a fighter. I never give up," Dae-Sung Moon tells Around the Rings in an email.
Moon, 38, is seeking to overturn a ruling from Kookmin University that he plagiarized his doctoral dissertation. The university announced the ruling earlier this year, stripping Moon’s doctorate in physical education.
Following the university decision, the IOC Ethics Commission reopened its file on Moon after closing it last year while waiting for the ruling. The IOC commission has requested a copy of the ruling from the university as well as a statement from the IOC member.
Moon tells ATR that he is not commenting publicly about the case before the IOC commission .
But he offers brief remarks about a lawsuit he’s filed against Kookmin University seeking to overturn the ruling and reinstate his degree. He says politics and not plagiarism are at the root of his troubles with the university.
"I can tell you that the reason for taking the university to the court. It is to prove in the court that Kookmin University's investigation procedure was politically motivated and strongly biased. I claim that my dissertation is not a case of plagiarism, and I cannot accept the university's final decision due to its lack of fairness in judgment or validity," says Moon about the lawsuit.
His disagreement with the university is obvious from his email signature, which includes "Ph.D.", an honorific Kookmin no longer recognizes.
Moon, elected a member of the IOC Athletes Commission in 2008, has two years left in his term. He was a gold medalist in taekwondo at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
The IOC Ethics Commission began its review of Moon’s case in 2012 after the university announced it was pursuing the plagiarism charges. But it took no action while the university proceedings dragged on. The Ethics Commission does not proceed with a case stemming from legal issues in the member’s country until a final verdict is reached. That ocurred when the university issued its ruling this year. While the case is pending before the Ethics Commission, the IOC makes no comment, as a general rule.
It is not known whether the civil lawsuit Moon has filed against Kookmin University will lead the Ethics Commission to put the case on hiatus again.
Written by Ed Hula
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