"The National People's Congress revoked Jiang Fangzhou's master's degree" and hoped that the punishment of academic misconduct in colleges and universities was just the beginning.

On July 13, a notice from Renmin University of China pushed the three words Jiang Fangzhou back into the spotlight.

On July 5, Jiang Fangzhou also refuted the whistleblower's allegations one by one on his personal public number, saying with certainty that the other party "systematically exaggerated and untrue", and even reported to the police on July 4. In less than ten days, the investigation team of the National People's Congress, through the literature traceability comparison and item-by-item verification by eight experts, determined that nine of its master's degree theses overlapped with the texts of Taiwan journal theses, without marking citations and listing references. According to thedegree law"and" Measures for the Prevention and Treatment of Academic Misconduct in Colleges and Universities ", and his master's degree was revoked.

Jiang Fangzhou immediately issued a post: "Accept the treatment and apologize to the readers and teachers."

From a firm denial to an admission of wrongdoing, there is a wall of evidence. However, if this is just a matter of watching a celebrity overturn, it will be a small matter. Jiang Fangzhou is not the first and will never be the last. She is just the more famous one. Behind her, there stands a whole industry chain of academic misconduct, from undergraduate to doctoral degree, from ordinary graduate students to"Jieqing”“Changjiang Scholar"From paper plagiarism to data fabrication, there are far more things in the root than the public thinks.

On the same day that Jiang Fangzhou's degree was revoked, another name was also rolling in the public opinion field, that is, Huizixuan, a female doctor of the National People's Congress. Her "crime" is more straightforward than Jiang Fangzhou's: the paper published in the core journal "Dramatic Art" was recognized by the editorial department as a "word-for-word translation" of an American master's thesis. The main content, argumentation framework and key points are all others', and even the punctuation marks are too lazy to change.

When the withdrawal statement was issued, she had just finished her doctor's defense for 20 days. The magic is that less than two weeks after the withdrawal of the manuscript, Anhui University put her name on the public list of candidates for employment, teaching and research posts. A person who was identified as academic misconduct in black and white almost took a doctor's degree and went directly to colleges and universities to teach and educate people.

After Anhui University was bombed by public opinion, it quickly stated that "it is seriously reviewing according to the regulations, and if it is true, it will not be employed according to the regulations". But the question was thrown back to the National People's Congress: Will Huizixuan's doctorate be withdrawn or not?

Article 37 of the "Degree Law" is clearly written. If there is academic misconduct during the study period, the degree can be revoked. Does "word-for-word translation" count as "serious illegal act"? This question should not be asked by the media, but should be answered by the academic degree evaluation committee of the National People's Congress.

Jiang Fangzhou and Huizixuan are students at least. Students make mistakes and the school has a system to control them. But what if the mistake is made by academic bigwigs holding the titles of "Jie Qing" and "Changjiang Scholar"? From April to May this year, top scholars from Tongji University, Nankai University, Sun Yat-sen University and many other prestigious universities were reported to have falsified their papers. In the paper published by Wang Ping, dean of the School of Life Sciences of Tongji University, in Nature, the end of a whole column of data is full of 5, and the exact difference between the two columns is 0.3. The compilation of data is so lazy that it doesn't even bother to use a random number generator. As a result of the investigation, the first author of the paper was dismissed and the corresponding author Wang Ping was removed from the post of dean and demoted by two levels. The president of Nankai and the vice president of Zhongshan were immediately reported and investigated. The Xinhua News Agency's investigative report asked a deafening question: why did those unconcealed doubts wait until they were promoted by outsiders before they were discovered? What are the censorship mechanisms of the academic committees and scientific research offices of colleges and universities doing at ordinary times?

The answer may be more disturbing than imagined. The researchers interviewed put it bluntly: the titles of "Yangtze River Scholar" and "Outstanding Youth" are often accompanied by the rise of administrative positions, and many people have turned their energy to administrative management, and the time spent on front-line scientific research has dropped sharply. However, if the title is to be maintained and go up, there must be a paper output. What should we do? Pick the scientific research results of team members. The more "big coffee", the easier it is to overlook the authenticity of the paper. "I'm too busy, and I don't even know what my staff is doing." In most cases, the scientific research department of colleges and universities only undertakes the function of "reference", and academic integrity mainly depends on the self-discipline of the research group.

More importantly, many colleges and universities have no motivation to take the initiative to investigate and deal with academic misconduct. The top journal papers are an important reference for discipline evaluation and ranking, and are the performance of individuals applying for "hats. Encouraging output is a hard task, quality control is a soft constraint, and the integrity line of defense is so useless. Family ugliness should not be publicized, covering the lid is more in line with the interests of the unit than uncovering the lid. After this logic runs, academic misconduct is not the moral anomie of individual students, but a systematic illness that is acquiesced by the system and driven by interests.

It must be admitted that over the years, academic misconduct has been one after another and has never been broken. In 2025, the China Association for Science and Technology revoked the youth science and technology awards and female scientist awards won by five people at one time, withdrew medals and certificates, and recovered bonuses. Of the scholars dealt with, three were national outstanding youths. The National Natural Science Foundation of China will report a list of people who have been disqualified from applying at regular intervals. The Ministry of Education has repeatedly asked colleges and universities to "zero tolerance" for academic misconduct ". But the word "zero tolerance" has been shouted for so many years, why do people from students to doctoral supervisors, from ordinary colleges and universities to top 985 still follow suit? Because "zero tolerance" in many cases is just a slogan: find out and deal with, find out not to find out and everything will be fine. And what can't be found out will always be the majority. If Wang Ping, the president of Tongji who was dismissed this time, had not been reported by the science blogger's video, the absurd and ridiculous "Nature" paper might still be worshipped in top journals. People in the circle have long seen the problem, but no one said it. Finally, a blogger who made popular science videos broke the window paper. This is the sadness of the academic community.

The National People's Congress revoked Jiang Fangzhou's master's degree, and public opinion was applauded. In this applause, there is a simple expectation of the public for academic integrity, as well as impatience with the long-term "big things" handling of colleges and universities. There is a detail that is easy to be ignored in the Jiang Fangzhou incident: the National People's Congress issued a circular in early July. At that time, it concluded that "no academic misconduct was found". It only suspended the enrollment qualification of tutors for one year and ordered the college to rectify. It was the whistleblower who continued to submit new clues that the school restarted the investigation and finally reversed. Without the whistleblower's death, Jiang Fangzhou's master's degree would have been saved.

This detail explains two things: first, the initial investigation of colleges and universities may not be reliable; second, external supervision is indispensable. The National People's Congress finally revoked its degree and stated that it "takes this as a lesson and continues to deepen the construction of the style of study". The posture is correct. But whether "taking this as a lesson" can really become an improvement in the system, rather than a relapse after the next limelight has passed, there is still a question mark.

Huizixuan's doctorate is still pending. Anhui University has already stated that "if it is true, it will not be employed in accordance with the regulations", and the pressure has been poured on the National People's Congress. If the National People's Congress finally decides not to revoke her doctoral degree, it is tantamount to sending a signal to the outside world: the papers published during the doctoral period can be copied, as long as the dissertation itself is fine. The absurdity of this logic is that it cuts academic integrity into pieces: you can be shameless when you send a paper, and you must follow the rules when you write a dissertation. But academic research is a continuous process. A person who translates other people's papers verbatim in core journals, how clean can her doctoral thesis be? How solid can her academic training be? What role did her supervisor play in her "verbatim translation" of the paper? These questions must be answered by the National People's Congress. Hui Zixuan is not Jiang Fangzhou. She has no celebrity aura and no public attention. Whether her degree will be withdrawn or not will be tested whether the system will be treated equally or selectively enforced.

In the final analysis, the withdrawal of Jiang Fangzhou's master's degree by the National People's Congress is only the beginning. This "start" has two meanings. The first floor is for Jiang Fangzhou herself: a person in her thirties, her master's degree has been revoked, and her life trajectory has been rewritten. This is the price she must bear. The other layer is that for the entire Chinese universities, if every investigation and punishment of academic misconduct depends on whistleblowers, public opinion, and outsiders to pierce the window paper, the credibility of the system will never be built. Academic integrity cannot rely solely on individual moral consciousness, nor can it rely solely on thunder after the event. It needs a set of mechanisms that make counterfeiters daunting, such as substantive review in the review process, rigid requirements for data repeatability, joint and several liability of tutors to students, endogenous motivation for colleges and universities to take the initiative to self-examine, and punishment that will never be lenient once verified. Jiang Fangzhou apologized. Hui Zi Xuan also admitted academic anomie. The deans who were removed from office were silent. The problem is that the next Jiang Fangzhou, the next Hui Zixuan and the next dean of data fabrication may be tapping the keyboard in a laboratory at the moment. The National People's Congress hopes to ring this alarm bell not only to the public, but also to those who are still covering their lids.