re: UNC Admits Academic Fraud: Lack Of Institutional Controls, *NCAA Issues 3rd NOA

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sovereign immunity

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So you work with people who majored in African American studies?

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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.

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ook trips player, not suspended for next game LINK

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1999: Deborah Crowder, the department secretary for African studies, started disguising the fake independent study classes she was directing – used heavily by athletes – as lecture classes. She later told investigator Kenneth Wainstein that the change was to avoid the university’s 12-hour limit on independent studies.

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NCAA officials say a new notice is close to being released.

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Q: Will the new notice reflect enough change to convince some fans the NCAA wasn’t trying to give UNC an opportunity to win a national championship?

A: UNC’s men’s basketball is one of the nation’s marquee programs, and the team came into the season as the favorite to win it all. Fans from other schools speculated the delay was staged to let the team compete for a championship. A new notice that’s insignificantly different from the first is likely to fuel fan concerns that UNC receives special treatment.

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