The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill academics-athletics scandal has become one of the most widely-publicized academic fraud cases in NCAA history.[1] It is an ongoing controversy about fraud and academic dishonesty committed by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Following a scandal that began in 2010 involving academic fraud and improper benefits with the university's football program, new accusations arose of academic improprieties with the university's African and Afro-American Studies department (commonly known as AFAM) and men's basketball program. This controversy has also sparked debate about whether the university is educating some of its student-athletes properly and the role of NCAA Division I athletics in colleges.[2]

 

An internal investigation by the university released in 2011 and another investigation commissioned by former North Carolina governor Jim Martin in 2012 found numerous academic and ethical issues with the AFAM department, including unauthorized grade changes and faculty signatures, classes with very little teaching taking place, and a disproportionate proportion of the student-athletes enrolled in affected classes. Then in 2014 began charges and countercharges between university officials and former learning specialist Mary Willingham, including disputes about statistics and methods of analysis by Willingham alleging that certain student-athletes are not academically qualified for college.[3] Additionally, former basketball player Rashad McCants, a member of the North Carolina basketball team that won the 2005 NCAA championship, alleged that he took substandard classes and had much of his classwork done by tutors. As a result of these revelations, there could be NCAA sanctions, including vacated wins.[4][5] It affects a variety of different people in different ways, including coaches, players, judges, politicians, academics, rivals, whistleblowers, lawyers, alumni, college administrators, the NCAA, state governors,[3] and journalists.[6]

A quick overview of the scandal: Mary Willingham, a worker at the UNC Center for Student Success and Academic Counseling, conducted extensive research into the literacy levels of the players on the university’s marquee teams—research, she says, UNC paid for but did not review. What she found was shocking: Some 8 to 10 percent of the students she worked with read at a third-grade level or below. She claims one student who came to see her could not read or write at all; another sought tutoring so that he could finally understand his own press coverage. When she presented her findings, the reaction was swift and severe: UNC disavowed her, both questioning her data and claiming that some of her research made its anonymous human subjects identifiable.

 

Although some Tar Heel fans are siding with the university (Willingham got death threats), many who are familiar with UNC’s dubious recent record of ethics are firmly in her corner, largely because it was Willingham who blew the whistle on a vast network of academic fraud at UNC in 2012, in which scores of athletes registered for—and received high grades in—courses that never met. “The shadow cast on her research speaks volumes about the university’s unwillingness to come to terms with the undermining of academic standards in the service of athletics,” writes Bloomberg’s Paul M. Barrett, who has covered UNC’s athletics scandals extensively.

Congrats @Manitoudan you've posted what EVERYBODY already knows. This isn't new. In the meantime, the Heels will continue to win. Have a nice day.

UNC wins the title. Roy Williams decides to retired. UNC's basketball program goes on probation and is banned for at least the 2017 post season.

IDK , nyknowitall says its no big deal and everyone already knows .

Dag gum it , I thought I was going to win a prize for my research .

IDK , nyknowitall says its no big deal and everyone already knows .

 

Tell me where I said "it's no big deal"? You're just a bitter fan of a team who isn't playing in the final 4. Carry on

UNC wins the title. Roy Williams decides to retired. UNC's basketball program goes on probation and is banned for at least the 2017 post season.

 

Roy won't leave that program in shambles. He'll ride it out then retire.

That was as dominant a performance on the boards as I can remember seeing.

Heels are loaded , great team when hitting on all cylinders . Hopefully they revert to the bad heels at some point soon. Having said that what a freaking cake walk to the FF for them .

had time to dig a bit deeper -- from a UNC history professor :

 

The return of March Madness has office pools humming. For decades, from the epic Magic and Bird final of 1979 to the era of the one-and-done's, the nation's appetite for college basketball has continued to grow. Buzzer beaters and Cinderellas and shining moments have created an "addictive" spectacle. Even president Obama eagerly fills out his brackets.

 

Among the most serious costs of this national "addiction" is the hypocrisy it cultivates among the leaders of our public universities. Gate receipts, NCAA tournament bonuses, and the goodwill and fundraising advantages that allegedly accrue to schools with a successful basketball "brand" have led the stewards of universities to ignore or tacitly accept practices that directly conflict with the core missions of their institutions: to pursue truth and to educate tomorrow's leaders.

 

Take one of the top seeds in this year's tournament, the North Carolina Tar Heels. We have learned much about the athletic-academic scandal uncovered at UNC between 2010 and 2015. We know that the fraud involved hundreds of classes and thousands of students. Faculty and administrators in many offices were complicit in the scam. They helped athletes enroll in notoriously soft courses across multiple departments. We know that many athletes stayed eligible for competition thanks to generous grades handed out in sham classes scheduled specifically for them. But a key detail about UNC's experience with academic fraud has gone largely unnoticed -- thanks to the university's assiduous PR management and a strangely desultory NCAA investigation. The system of academic fraud cooked up around 1990 was initially intended to benefit one team in particular: the men's basketball team.

 

The first UNC course offered as a favor to the basketball team, scheduled in 1988, was an independent study for two painfully weak students who hovered at or below the eligibility line. They received helpful B's, and out of that little experiment the UNC course scam was born. In fall 1992 one star of the basketball team ostensibly pursued an independent study with a faculty member who was on sabbatical at the time. (I know this because I shared a fellowship leave with that faculty member.) This had to have been one of the "shadow" courses offered by the administrative assistant who played such a central role in the fraud, a generous woman whose closest friend was the basketball team's academic counselor. She assigned A or B grades in the shadow courses, which required no attendance and little work. One player on the 1993 team took seven suspect courses with her help; four starters on that team majored in the department where she worked. UNC's 1993 championship run seems to have been aided and abetted by fraud.

 

By 2005, when UNC won its next national championship, the "paper class" system (so called because students had to turn in only one paper of uncertain provenance to collect their A's) was hitting on all cylinders. Players on the men's basketball team took over one hundred of the fake courses, with one racking up eighteen. Star forward Rashad McCants has admitted that he rarely attended a single class in the spring of 2005 -- even though he landed on the Dean's list for the high grades he was awarded. Players on the 2009 national championship team received similar favors.

 

UNC's leaders first worked hard not to learn that men's basketball had been the driver of the scandal and then refused to acknowledge that reality when the evidence for it was finally exposed. In a comical maneuver, they redacted the word "basketball" from emails they were forced to release to the public. When Rashad McCants spoke the truth about his academic experiences, the athletic department lined up former teammates to accuse him of fabricating tales. (McCants, tellingly, is the only player on the team willing to show the world his academic transcript, where the truth resides.) When the Kenneth Wainstein report of 2014 at last proved that the fraud scheme had been designed to keep athletes eligible, and that the worst abuses occurred during the basketball championship year of 2005, the university reacted by doubling down and handing coach Roy Williams a contract extension. Meanwhile, administrative leaders continue to urge the university community to "move forward" as the dithering NCAA enables UNC's pursuit of another national title.

 

The UNC case is of course only one symptom of a national disease. At Syracuse, officials pressured a professor to change a grade for the star center. At Florida State, players were handed answers to quizzes. At Michigan, administrators appeared to cover for an independent studies scam led by a faculty member with courtside seats. At UCLA, an advisor for the basketball team resigned in disgust when he claimed he saw a pattern of illicit grade changing. At Louisville, prostitutes and strippers were reportedly used to lure in talented high school players. Rather than call out this corruption and reassert the primacy of academic values, university presidents duck responsibility and cravenly feed the nation's basketball "addiction". Winning on the hard court, they have decided, is more important than integrity. We should all ponder the hypocrisy such leaders are modeling for today's university students -- the leaders of tomorrow -- as we await the next tip-off.

 

Jay M. Smith is a professor of history at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is the co-author, with Mary Willingham, of Cheated: The UNC Scandal, the Education of Athletes, and the Future of Big-Time College Sports.

Edited March 30, 201610 yr by Randy Parker

Heels are loaded , great team when hitting on all cylinders . Hopefully they revert to the bad heels at some point soon. Having said that what a freaking cake walk to the FF for them .

 

Yes a cake walk... the East was the easiest bracket by far. How dare the NCAA do that to a cheating team. Allow them to have a cake walk. :walk: Jealousy doesn't look good on you :thumb:

had time to dig a bit deeper -- from a UNC history professor :

 

The return of March Madness has office pools humming. For decades, from the epic Magic and Bird final of 1979 to the era of the one-and-done's, the nation's appetite for college basketball has continued to grow. Buzzer beaters and Cinderellas and shining moments have created an "addictive" spectacle. Even president Obama eagerly fills out his brackets.

 

Among the most serious costs of this national "addiction" is the hypocrisy it cultivates among the leaders of our public universities. Gate receipts, NCAA tournament bonuses, and the goodwill and fundraising advantages that allegedly accrue to schools with a successful basketball "brand" have led the stewards of universities to ignore or tacitly accept practices that directly conflict with the core missions of their institutions: to pursue truth and to educate tomorrow's leaders.

 

Take one of the top seeds in this year's tournament, the North Carolina Tar Heels. We have learned much about the athletic-academic scandal uncovered at UNC between 2010 and 2015. We know that the fraud involved hundreds of classes and thousands of students. Faculty and administrators in many offices were complicit in the scam. They helped athletes enroll in notoriously soft courses across multiple departments. We know that many athletes stayed eligible for competition thanks to generous grades handed out in sham classes scheduled specifically for them. But a key detail about UNC's experience with academic fraud has gone largely unnoticed -- thanks to the university's assiduous PR management and a strangely desultory NCAA investigation. The system of academic fraud cooked up around 1990 was initially intended to benefit one team in particular: the men's basketball team.

 

The first UNC course offered as a favor to the basketball team, scheduled in 1988, was an independent study for two painfully weak students who hovered at or below the eligibility line. They received helpful B's, and out of that little experiment the UNC course scam was born. In fall 1992 one star of the basketball team ostensibly pursued an independent study with a faculty member who was on sabbatical at the time. (I know this because I shared a fellowship leave with that faculty member.) This had to have been one of the "shadow" courses offered by the administrative assistant who played such a central role in the fraud, a generous woman whose closest friend was the basketball team's academic counselor. She assigned A or B grades in the shadow courses, which required no attendance and little work. One player on the 1993 team took seven suspect courses with her help; four starters on that team majored in the department where she worked. UNC's 1993 championship run seems to have been aided and abetted by fraud.

 

By 2005, when UNC won its next national championship, the "paper class" system (so called because students had to turn in only one paper of uncertain provenance to collect their A's) was hitting on all cylinders. Players on the men's basketball team took over one hundred of the fake courses, with one racking up eighteen. Star forward Rashad McCants has admitted that he rarely attended a single class in the spring of 2005 -- even though he landed on the Dean's list for the high grades he was awarded. Players on the 2009 national championship team received similar favors.

 

UNC's leaders first worked hard not to learn that men's basketball had been the driver of the scandal and then refused to acknowledge that reality when the evidence for it was finally exposed. In a comical maneuver, they redacted the word "basketball" from emails they were forced to release to the public. When Rashad McCants spoke the truth about his academic experiences, the athletic department lined up former teammates to accuse him of fabricating tales. (McCants, tellingly, is the only player on the team willing to show the world his academic transcript, where the truth resides.) When the Kenneth Wainstein report of 2014 at last proved that the fraud scheme had been designed to keep athletes eligible, and that the worst abuses occurred during the basketball championship year of 2005, the university reacted by doubling down and handing coach Roy Williams a contract extension. Meanwhile, administrative leaders continue to urge the university community to "move forward" as the dithering NCAA enables UNC's pursuit of another national title.

 

The UNC case is of course only one symptom of a national disease. At Syracuse, officials pressured a professor to change a grade for the star center. At Florida State, players were handed answers to quizzes. At Michigan, administrators appeared to cover for an independent studies scam led by a faculty member with courtside seats. At UCLA, an advisor for the basketball team resigned in disgust when he claimed he saw a pattern of illicit grade changing. At Louisville, prostitutes and strippers were reportedly used to lure in talented high school players. Rather than call out this corruption and reassert the primacy of academic values, university presidents duck responsibility and cravenly feed the nation's basketball "addiction". Winning on the hard court, they have decided, is more important than integrity. We should all ponder the hypocrisy such leaders are modeling for today's university students -- the leaders of tomorrow -- as we await the next tip-off.

 

Jay M. Smith is a professor of history at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is the co-author, with Mary Willingham, of Cheated: The UNC Scandal, the Education of Athletes, and the Future of Big-Time College Sports.

 

:isurrender: You've won

Edited March 30, 201610 yr by Randy Parker