The University of Houston confirmed it launched an investigation into allegations the Katy Independent School District’s embattled superintendent plagiarized his doctoral dissertation while a student there.

However, because UH says it is following “strict and confidential internal protocols” to ensure due process, almost four months later it still wasn’t clear if the inquiry targeting Lance Hindt has been completed or is ongoing.

“The university takes any charge of academic or research misconduct seriously and thoroughly investigates any such charge, including the allegations against Dr. Hindt,” UH said in a statement. “Federal privacy law prohibits the university from commenting any further about this matter.”

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Hindt could lose his doctorate if their inquiry ultimately determines he did plagiarize the other work.

“The university may impose sanctions against former students for a finding of academic misconduct, up to and including degree revocation,” UH’s officials said in the statement.

Peter Wood, the president of the New York-based National Association of Scholars wrote a letter in July to UH President Renu Khator to appraise her of his own investigation into Hindt’s 2012 PhD project titled, “The Effects of Principal Leadership on Teacher Morale and Student Achievement.” The concern was its similarity to Georgia educator Keith Rowland’s own dissertation published four years earlier called “The Relationship of Principal Leadership and Teacher Morale.”

“His plagiarism is extensive but Hindt appears to have proceeded systematically by adding words and phrases and occasionally varying word order,” Wood wrote. “But given the brevity of both dissertations, which are little more than long-term papers, there is no great obstacle to comparing the two.”

Wood concluded Hindt was adding superfluous words into Rowland’s text.

“’First of all,’ ‘present’ and ‘in general,’ do not alter the structure or meaning of Rowland’s sentence. They simply camouflage the theft,” he told Khator in the letter later released to the public.

In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Rowland — now a school principal in suburban Atlanta — said it was clear to him Hindt lifted portions of his own dissertation without attribution.

“There were a lot of similarities,” he said. “A lot of the sections were just flipped and copied.”

As is the case with the University of Houston, officials with Rice University said they also reserve the right to take back any academic degree they grant for a variety of reasons — including academic misconduct. According to Rice University policy, the Provost receives all recommendations for degree revocation and forwards it to the president — who has the deciding authority.

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“The student will be asked to return the diploma,” the policy states.

In May, a Katy ISD spokesperson said there was “zero truth” to the allegations Hindt cheated on his doctoral dissertation. Although he hasn’t been sitting for school board meetings since July, Hindt continues to have strong support from the Board of Trustees. Deputy Superintendent Ken Gregorski has been taking his place on the board since then.

He announced his resignation from Katy ISD’s top job in a May 10 board meeting, about two months after he was accused by a former classmate of having been a bully in junior high school. Hindt later said a “smear campaign” waged against him and his family prompted his decision to resign effective Jan. 1, 2019. As a result of a contract amended at the last minute, he will receive about $750,000, an amount equal to two years of base pay on his last day on the job.

In a statement, Katy ISD officials said school board members are continuing to “review and discuss options” for the person who will formally replace Hindt as superintendent.

“As this is the most important decision a school board makes, no time table has been set for the process,” they said.

mike.glenn@chron.com