Ohio prof settles lawsuit over plagiarism allegations

ATHENS, Ohio (AP) — A college professor who says he was wrongly accused of helping students plagiarize is getting a $150,000 settlement from Ohio University.

Court records show the university will pay the professor and that he’s agreed to drop his lawsuit against the school in southwest Ohio.

The professor, Jay Gunasekera, was stripped of his role as a graduate student adviser in the mechanical engineering department after a school investigation into whether students copied master’s or doctoral theses.

Investigators said unnamed faculty members ignored ethical responsibilities. Gunasekera argued that investigators implied that he ignored plagiarism.

He was chairman of Ohio University’s mechanical engineering department when the plagiarism allegations arose in 2004.