UNAM assures that it delivered the documentation of the Esquivel case to the SEP

Fernando Camacho and Georgina Saldierna

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday January 14, 2023, p. 4

The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) sent on Thursday to the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) the documentation on the thesis of Minister Yasmín Esquivel Mossa, so that it is this federal agency that decides on the validity of the professional title of the magistrate.

Sources close to the maximum house of studies sent this newspaper the photo of a paper envelope with the legend confidential/urgentwhich the rector of the University, Enrique Graue Wiechers, sent to the head of the SEP, Leticia Ramírez Amaya.

In the image you can see that the envelope contains a stamp of receipt from the SEP Reports Office, the signature of the official who received it and the date of this Thursday the 12th.

The foregoing contradicts the statements of the head of the Ministry of the Interior, Adán Augusto López Hernández, who assured – on a working tour of Puebla – that until midnight on Thursday, the UNAM had not officially notified the SEP about the case. of Minister Esquivel, whom the Academic and Scientific Integrity Committee of the Faculty of Higher Studies (FES) Aragón pointed out as responsible for plagiarizing her degree thesis.

When asked about the issue, López Hernández stated: I know of a statement that circulated, but precisely last night (Thursday), late, I asked the Secretary of Education if she had already received any notification in this regard, (but) it has not been officially notified. Then then, we cannot give an opinion as a government until that fact occurs. He added that when that fact occurs, if it occurs, then there will be a position of the federal government and specifically of the SEP.

As reported in this newspaper, last Wednesday, Graue indicated in a statement that, although the FES Aragón verified Esquivel’s plagiarism, the UNAM could not invalidate his degree, because university regulations lacks the mechanisms legal to do so.

However, the UNAM general attorney, Alfredo Sánchez Castañeda, clarified that article 23, section VII, of the regulatory law of the fifth constitutional article would allow the General Directorate of Professions of the SEP cancel the registration of the titles of professionals judicially sentenced to disqualification from the exercise.