Birmingham, AL – The president of Jacksonville State University is being accused of plagiarizing his doctoral dissertation at the University of Alabama.
A lawsuit filed against William Meehan claims he submitted a dissertation that was copied in part from another professor's work around the time he became JSU president in 1999.
An Associated Press review found similarities between the two papers, and an expert hired by a JSU professor suing Meehan over another issue concluded his dissertation was plagiarism.
Meehan said through a university spokesman there was ``no substance'' to the charges, and University of Alabama officials found no reason to take any action.
Reports in 2007 revealed that newspaper columns appearing under Meehan's name were lifted off Internet sites. The school said the columns were ghostwritten by a former university publicist.
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