--- description: A new report alleges that Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto plagiarized nearly a third of his 1991 undergraduate law thesis title: Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto Accused of Plagiarizing Law Thesis image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt748578fc32c91eb6/6988a324f887dc2feae9723e/pena-nieto-plagiarism.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto Accused of Plagiarizing Law Thesis by [Mahita Gajanan](/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Aug 22, 2016 2:37 PM CUT  Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto delivers a speech during the welcoming ceremony in honour of Australian Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove (out of frame) at the National Palace in Mexico City on August 1, 2016\. Cosgrove arrived in Mexico on an official visit. / AFP / ALFREDO ESTRELLA (Photo credit should read ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images) Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto delivers a speech during the welcoming ceremony in honour of Australian Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove (out of frame) at the National Palace in Mexico City on August 1, 2016\. Cosgrove arrived in Mexico on an official visit. / AFP / ALFREDO ESTRELLA (Photo credit should read ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images)ALFREDO ESTRELLA—AFP/Getty Images by [Mahita Gajanan](/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Aug 22, 2016 2:37 PM CUT A new report by investigative journalists in Mexico alleges that president Enrique Peña Nieto plagiarized nearly a third of his 1991 undergraduate law thesis. According to the report, nearly 197 of the 682 paragraphs that made up the 200-page thesis were lifted from writers and historians without citation. The website [Aristegui Noticias](http://aristeguinoticias.com/especiales/2016/especial/8ago/el-plagio/index.html "undefined"), run by journalist Carmen Aristegui, published a [video and accompanying article](http://aristeguinoticias.com/especiales/2016/especial/8ago/el-plagio/ "undefined") chronicling the instances of plagiarism in the thesis, entitled ‘Mexican Presidentialism and Alvaro Obregon.’ Government spokesman Eduardo Sanchez called the lack of citation “style errors” in a statement, Reuters reported. He said Peña Nieto met all the requirements to graduate from Panamerican University. Aristegui has previously clashed with the Mexican government — her website broke the ‘Casa Blanca’ scandal in 2014 that revealed Peña Nieto’s wife was buying a luxury home from a government contractor. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4461186/mexican-president-plagiarize-law-thesis/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4461186/mexican-president-plagiarize-law-thesis/"},"headline":"Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto Accused of Plagiarizing Law Thesis","datePublished":"2016-08-22T14:37:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:07:16.268Z","description":"Nearly a third of his thesis was lifted without citation from other writers, according to a report","url":"https://time.com/4461186/mexican-president-plagiarize-law-thesis/","keywords":["Mexico"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt748578fc32c91eb6/6988a324f887dc2feae9723e/pena-nieto-plagiarism.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt748578fc32c91eb6/6988a324f887dc2feae9723e/pena-nieto-plagiarism.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"MEXICO-AUSTRALIA-PENA NIETO-COSGROVE","caption":"MEXICO-AUSTRALIA-PENA NIETO-COSGROVE","creditText":"ALFREDO ESTRELLA—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4461186/mexican-president-plagiarize-law-thesis/","name":"Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto Accused of Plagiarizing Law Thesis"}}]}] ```