Politicians accused of plagiarism in their academic theses: from Jennifer Arias to Peña Nieto and Vladimir Putin

(CNN Spanish) – The president of the Colombian House of Representatives, Jennifer Arias, seems to have joined an exclusive club with global reach: that of politicians who have been accused of plagiarizing her academic theses.

The Externado de Colombia University determined after months of investigation that there was plagiarism in Arias’s master’s thesis in Government and Public Policy, the institution said in a statement on Monday. He also indicated that the legislator and her thesis partner will go to court to request that the master’s degree be annulled.

Arias, who belongs to the ruling Democratic Center party, said Monday in his bill from Twitter that he was innocent and had not plagiarized.

It is not the first time that politicians have been accused of committing plagiarism in their academic theses, through which they obtained degrees to improve their resumes and enhance their careers.

Next, the politicians accused of plagiarism in their academic theses

Enrique Peña Nieto, former president of Mexico

In 2016 a journalistic investigation of Aristegui News accused the then president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, of plagiarizing almost 30% of his final thesis at the Universidad Panamericana.

Thanks to this help, Peña Nieto obtained a Law Degree in 1991.

According to the research conducted by specialists and academics, in his thesis, entitled Mexican presidentialism and Álvaro Obregón, Peña Nieto “plagiarized at least 197 paragraphs of the 982 that make up the text.” This would represent 28.8% of the content, according to the journalistic team.

The then spokesman for the Presidency of Mexico, Eduardo Sánchez, dismissed the findings as “irregularities” and “errors of style such as quotes without quotation marks or lack of reference to authors that he included in the bibliography.”

And he stressed: “The lawyer Peña Nieto presented that thesis 25 years ago. He fulfilled the requirements established by the Universidad Panamericana to qualify as a lawyer.”

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

Putin was accused in 2006 of plagiarizing his graduate thesis at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, presented in 1996 or 1997, according to researchers from the Brookings Institute.

“It all comes down to plagiarism,” said Clifford G. Gaddy of the Brookings Institution at the time, after reading the document. “Whether you’re talking about a college-level document, let alone a formal dissertation, there’s no question in my mind that this would be plagiarism.”

According to the research, 16 of the 20 pages of a document published by the University of Pittsburgh 20 years earlier are present in the thesis of Putin, who at that time was working in the St. Petersburg government, without reference.

Igor Danchenko, who investigated the case with Gaddy, Indian at the time of presenting his findings that, in his opinion, Putin had not even written the text accused of plagiarism. “This is clearly the product of some ‘diploma factory’ operation, of which there are so many in Russia. This is a paid dissertation, made to order,” he explained.

Pal Schmitt, former President of Hungary

Former Olympic fencing champion Pal Schmitt became president of Hungary in 2010. Just two years later he had to resign, embroiled in a scandal after being accused of plagiarizing his doctoral thesis.

The Semmelweis University of Budapest, former University of Physical Education, reported in 2012 and after investigation that 200 of the 215 pages of Schmitt’s thesis showed “partial similarity” or were translations of other works.

Consequently, he withdrew his doctoral degree, and Schmitt ended up resigning the presidency shortly thereafter.

Victor Ponta, former Prime Minister of Romania

In the same year that Schmitt resigned, the then Prime Minister of Romania, Victor Ponta, was also accused of plagiarizing his doctoral thesis.

Ponta rejected the accusations and said he was the victim of a political attack by President Traian Basescu.

However, the University of Bucharest ruled that he had plagiarized much of his 2003 doctorate on the International Criminal Court, and in 2014 withdrew his degree.

Klavdija Markez, former Minister of Education of Slovenia

Just five days after taking office, then-Slovenian Education Minister Klavdija Markez resigned in April 2015 after being accused in local media of plagiarizing her master’s thesis, he said. Reuters this year.

Markez did not comment on the accusation.

Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, former German Defense Secretary

Once considered a rising star within Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, then-German Defense Secretary Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg was accused in 2011 of plagiarizing his doctoral thesis and the University of Bayreuth revoked his degree.

Although zu Guttenberg rejected the accusations, he had to resign his position and say goodbye to his rising career after receiving widespread public criticism.

In Germany he was nicknamed “Baron zu Googleberg”, in reference to the popular search engine on the Internet, and the “minister of cut and paste”.

Annette Schavan, former German Health Minister

Like her colleague zu Guttenberg, Schavan was accused of plagiarizing her 1980 doctoral thesis and in 2013 the University of Dusseldorf eventually withdrew her degree.

On this occasion, the plagiarism was alerted by a blogger who painstakingly presented the comparisons between Schavan’s work and other publications.

John Walsh, former United States Senator

Retired serviceman and Democratic Party member John Walsh became a United States Senator from the state of Montana in 2014, replacing a colleague who had chosen to retire.

But Walsh had to give up his re-election campaign that same year when he was accused of plagiarism in his master’s thesis in an investigation of The New York Times.

Apparently, three-quarters of the 20-page document, entitled “The Case for Democracy as a Long-Term National Strategy” was flagged for plagiarism, and he decided to withdraw from the election.

Monica Crowley, Donald Trump Administration Official

Conservative writer Monica Crowley had been nominated by Donald Trump as director of strategic communications at the National Security Council to join his new government in 2017.

But before Trump’s inauguration, Crowley stepped aside after CNN discovered multiple examples of plagiarism in his 2012 book, in his Washington Times columns, and in his dissertation to obtain a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Crowley rejection these accusations stating that “I have never used or would use material from a source without citing it.”

The author would finally enter the Trump administration two years later and regardless of these accusations: in July 2019 she became spokeswoman of the Treasury Department.

With information from CNN’s Farida Fawzy