The member of the Supreme Court showed her rejection of the resolution issued by the Academic and Scientific Integrity Committee of the Faculty of Higher Studies (FES) Aragon.
The minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), Yasmin Esquivel, refused this Monday to resign from the highest court due to the controversy generated after a university committee confirmed plagiarism in her university thesis from 35 years ago.
“I have an impeccable career, in which I have nothing to be ashamed of, I will continue to work hard; I will participate in today’s session and in all subsequent ones,” Esquivel said in his first statement to the media on the subject.
On January 11, a committee from the Faculty of Higher Studies (FES) Aragon of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) presented the findings of an analysis that compared the degree thesis presented by Esquivel in 1987 and the one exhibited one year earlier —July 1986— by a student at the UNAM Law School, Edgar Ulises Baez Gutierrez.
The Academic and Scientific Integrity Committee of the FES Aragon concluded that “the thesis prepared in 1987 is substantial copy of the originalpresented in 1986 by a former student of the Faculty of Law”.
Minister rejects the resolution
On the subject, the minister showed her absolute rejection of the resolution issued by the university committee.
“There was no procedure, there was no assessment of the evidence that conclusively determines that the thesis is my authorship, and of course, I have not even been notified of any opinion or act,” she told Milenio Television.
For its part, UNAM ruled out invalidating Minister Esquivel’s title, apologizing that “university regulations lack the mechanisms” to do so, “even when the plagiarism of a thesis is documented“.
Instead, the UNAM reported that the content of the committee’s resolution would be sent to the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) “for the purposes that may arise.”
Meanwhile, the Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, made reference to the alleged plagiarism during the morning conference on Monday.
“It is up to the UNAM to decide and present a complaint to obtain a court order that annuls the degree of Minister Yasmin,” declared the president. “If there is evidence that there was plagiarism and that this is a reason to cancel the professional title, you have to file a complaint with the Public Ministry,” he added.
Likewise, Lopez Obrador questioned that it was the UNAM, through the rector Enrique Graue, who sent the matter to the Ministry of Public Education, when that instance “does not have the power to annul a title” unless there is a “judicial order”.
Source: RT
