“I feel devastated”: director of Jennifer Arias plagiarized thesis; new irregularities are known

The controversy over plagiarism in the master's degree thesis of the current Speaker of the House of Representatives, Jenifer Arias, does not cease. The Universidad Externado de Colombia confirmed that the Uribista congresswoman copied several fragments of other texts and, in the last few hours, new scandalous details were known about this case that shook the country and public opinion during 2021.

According to what was revealed by the investigative unit of Caracol News, Jennifer Arias copied texts from books and writings by multiple authors; in addition, they were able to show that the congresswoman of the Democratic Center has “dubious records”, as well as missing files, “a false supporting document and juries that do not appear”, detailed the medium.

Arias completed a master's degree in Government and Public Policy and, according to what the Externado University reported, and which it confirmed in its research Noticias Caracol, Jennifer Arias used several references and did not use references or give the corresponding credits to make the statements in her writing.

This report was attended by renowned lawyer Rodrigo Uprimmy, who claims that after the plagiarism of the president of that corporation was confirmed, she had to resign from her position, even vehemently questioned the managers who evaluated the degree work of the questioned representative in the first instance.

One of the facts, perhaps, more striking than what was revealed by the news program directed by Juan Roberto Vargas, whose research unit is under the command of Ricardo Calderón, is that Jennifer Arias cited a book on ethics and morals in her research; however, it should be clarified that the Externado assured that they do not have a copy of the representative's thesis, although Noticias Caracol says it does have access to the text that would have 109 pages and 51 bibliographical references, which includes the above-mentioned text.

What is more, another detail that was released in the news report is that the record that confirms the degree process of the president of the Chamber has several anomalies, such as the fact that it was completed by hand by Manuel Calderón, the professor who directed the thesis of Arias and his colleague Leydy Lucía Largo.

According to the report, there are observations in that record confirming that the two then students presented their undergraduate thesis and received the endorsement of Calderón, who was also coordinator of the master's degree that is currently being watched by public opinion and the press to the Uribista representative.

Likewise, Noticias Caracol says that, despite the fact that John Marulanda and Carlos Augusto Giraldo appeared as jurors of Arias and Largo's degree work, “they were never in support,” the media said, and that is why the Externado University issued a lawsuit demanding that the degrees that both women received after graduating.

Calderón was interviewed by that media outlet and gave details of how he received the news and how he feels about it: “I am devastated and deeply dismayed and it has been a confrontation with myself. When I read the document, it seems to me that from the point of view of the reading that I can do to it, and to the human eye, it is a document that meets certain characteristics and had a citation structure,” the master's director told Caracol News .

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