COLUMBUS, Ohio, March 8 (UPI) -- An Ohio University professor who alleged civil rights violations has settled a plagiarism lawsuit with the school in federal court, court records indicated.
Jay Gunasekera filed a lawsuit in 2006, claiming the university in Columbus denied him due process by not allowing him to defend himself before revoking his graduate faculty status, the Columbus Dispatch and the Athens News reported Tuesday.
In a scandal that began in 2004, the university publicly held Gunasekera responsible for permitting plagiarized documents in graduate mechanical engineering theses over a 20-year period, the News reported.
Gunasekera will receive $32,501 in Monday's settlement in addition to $118,238 he was awarded in February for attorney's fees.
Gunasekera was chairman of the school's mechanical-engineering department in 2004 when allegations of plagiarism were made against a number of master's and doctoral degree candidates, the Dispatch reported.
He filed suit after he lost his position as graduate adviser during the university's probe into whether several students had copied others' work, the Dispatch said.
The U.S. District Court in Columbus granted Gunasekera's motion for summary judgment in October.
