University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill academics-athletics scandal

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. 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. 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. 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. 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, and journalists. Background- The role of collegiate athletics: n the United States, college-level sports is big business, valued at $16 billion, according to two estimates. The UNC basketball program earned a profit of $17 million in 2012. Collegiate sports, as a business, exists within a non-business framework of tax-exempt non-profit universities which are focused on research and education; in a sense, big-money athletics "coexists uneasily" with universities, according to one view. The success of college teams on playfields has a powerful impact on collegiate prestige, such that a college's winning team can stoke alumni donations as well as encourage higher levels of applicants. Further, collegiate sports, particularly at state flagship universities such as UNC, is a deep part of the lives of millions of alumni, fans, and students, practically "sacrosanct", triggering deep-seated emotions, particularly when their school's teams compete on the national level. Basketball and football competitions between large public universities attract huge audiences and bring millions of dollars in revenue through advertising, ticket sales, brand merchandising, licensing arrangements, and video game contracts. For example, in 2012, UNC sports revenues were $82.4 million, less expenses of $81.9 million, but that the university ranked 25th behind many colleges with more sports revenue. While sports coaches at these colleges can earn million-dollar salaries, players are not paid salaries as such, but rather are given scholarships and tuition breaks and other perks instead. There is an implicit bargain in effect: in exchange for a player's sacrifice on the gridiron or basketball court, a player will receive an academically-competent college education, often subsidized with scholarships, that will help the athlete succeed after college. Yet playing at top levels is demanding physically, leading to questions whether it is sensible to expect hard-working athletes to try to keep up with academics. Student-athletes and academics: Generally, most student-athletes are legitimate students who study and pass and succeed academically, but in some schools there is a small percentage of athletes, particularly in revenue-producing sports such as basketball and football, in which there are academic improprieties. A major allegation in this particular scandal is that the university funneled students into "make-believe courses" and subsequently stamped their transcripts with "inflated grades", such that the students received "little or no real education". That colleges have been admitting some academically ill-prepared but talented athletes for many decades is an "age-old problem", and once in school, the schools must maintain the pretense that these admitted students are remaining in good academic standing, but it is difficult for some of these student-athletes to keep up academically. A CNN investigation estimated that the percentage of so-called "revenue sport athletes" who were reading at an elementary school level was approximately 7% to 18%, with some schools having even higher percentages reading at below college levels; an analysis by Oklahoma professor Gerald Gurney estimated that a tenth of revenue-sport athletes were reading below a fourth-grade level. Still, in the drive to win victory in NCAA tournaments, there is tremendous pressure to recruit top athletes to these schools regardless of their academic ability. Many schools believe that excellent tutoring and extra attention off the field help their athletes succeed after school. We pretend that it’s feasible to recruit high school graduates with minimal academic qualifications, give them a full-time job as a football or basketball player at a Division I NCAA school, and somehow have them get up to college-level reading and writing skills at the same time that they’re enrolled in college-level classes. — Richard Southall, director, College Sport Research Institute; As a result, colleges are pressured to maintain a facade of academic respectability. The arrangement has been questioned by the United States Senate A way to meet the dual demands of helping students academically while they compete in college sports is to hire low-profile tutors and academic assistants to help academically-challenged top athletes pass their courses and graduate. North Carolina football scandal: On July 15, 2010, ESPN reported that the NCAA interviewed several North Carolina football players over alleged gifts, extra benefits, and sports agent involvement. Reportedly, the investigation began after North Carolina defensive tackle Marvin Austin made a post on Twitter on May 29 that year, and the post contained a reference to a nightclub in Miami in which a sports agent's party had taken place two months earlier. The university later suspended Austin and over ten other football players from the team. On October 11, 2010, Austin was expelled from the football team, and the NCAA declared wide receiver Greg Little and defensive end Robert Quinn "permanently ineligible" due to receiving improper benefits. On August 26, 2010, the NCAA began a separate investigation of North Carolina football that involved possible academic fraud involving a tutor in the university's academic support program. The tutor was later identified as Jennifer Wiley (as of 2013 known as Jennifer Wiley Thompson due to marriage). Another source familiar with the investigation said that Wiley was accused of "inappropriate help on papers that football players were required to write for classes." However, Baddour said on September 24 that Wiley declined to cooperate with the NCAA. Because the university felt that the NCAA investigation was extremely embarrassing to the university's reputation, North Carolina fired football head coach Butch Davis on July 27, 2011. The next day, athletic director Dick Baddour announced that he would resign and allow chancellor Holden Thorp to hire a football head coach. On March 12, 2012, the NCAA issued formal sanctions against North Carolina football: a postseason ban for 2012, reductions of 15 scholarships, and 3 years of probation. The NCAA found North Carolina guilty of multiple infractions, including academic fraud and failure to monitor the football program. However, the NCAA did not find anything extending to lack of institutional control, explaining that the university "educated its tutors regarding academic improprieties and its coaches regarding outside athletically related income...self-discovered the academic fraud and took decisive action...cooperated fully, is not a repeat violator and...exhibited appropriate control over its athletics program." In November 2013, the university sent a letter of disassociation to Austin, Little, and Quinn. Allegations of impropriety- Overview: A basic charge by critics is that UNC is not living up to its end of the bargain by not sufficiently educating some of its student-athletes. Rebecca Schuman of Slate.com accused the university of "abjectly failing some of its students" by keeping them "functionally illiterate." Gerald Gurney, president of the Drake Group for Academic Integrity in College Sport, called UNC "the mother of all academic fraud violations" because of "cooperation of friendly faculty and a cover-up." Paul M. Barrett, in a cover story for the March 3, 2014 Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, wrote: "...rather than seriously investigate the connection between sports and classroom corruption, top university administrators used vague committee reports to obfuscate the issue." There are reports of freelance sleuthing into the allegations by students from rival schools. Reporter Dan Kane of the News & Observer was part of a three-person investigative team which exposed the scandal, despite substantial resistance by the university, according to a subsequent report in the New York Times. Kane has been criticized by detractors for leading a "wrongheaded effort" to link college sports with academic improprieties; college administrators "no longer take his calls", and some faculty describe his efforts as a witch hunt for a conspiracy that does not exist. Initial accusations: Suspicions about the UNC Department of African and Afro-American Studies (commonly known as AFAM) were raised as early as 2011. UNC defensive end Michael McAdoo filed a lawsuit against the NCAA on July 1, 2011 seeking reinstatement to the football team. The NCAA declared McAdoo ineligible for accepting improper benefits and committing academic fraud, based on the UNC Undergraduate Honor Court finding that McAdoo committed academic dishonesty by having Jennifer Wiley complete a bibliography and works-cited section on a research paper for an AFAM class. From this lawsuit, McAdoo was forced to make public the paper; an analysis by Dan Kane of the Raleigh News & Observer found that the Honor Court failed to find multiple instances of plagiarism in McAdoo's paper. On July 13, a North Carolina Superior Court judge in Durham refused to grant an injunction against the NCAA, thus upholding ineligibility for McAdoo. Then in August, Dan Kane reported that football player Marvin Austin took a 400-level course in the department the summer before his freshman fall semester. According to an academic adviser at the university, "it is unusual for any freshman to begin his or her college education with a 400 level course." On September 1, 2011, just over a week after Kane's article about Austin's transcript was published, AFAM department chair Julius Nyang'oro resigned from his executive position but remained on faculty. More controversy for AFAM came after the transcript of former North Carolina football and basketball player Julius Peppers was found under a University of North Carolina web address (www.unc.edu) by members of PackPride, a Scout.com community for fans of rival school NC State.[27][28] A university staffer originally posted the transcript with Peppers's identifying information removed on a secure UNC server as a test record in 2001. Six years later, another staffer mistakenly moved the test record to an unsecured server. The transcript showed a cumulative grade point average of 1.82 from the summer 1998 to spring 2001 terms with 11 grades of D or F. Additionally, Peppers's grades for AFAM classes were on average higher than for non-AFAM classes, and Peppers was never academically ineligible for athletic competition despite his grades. Through his agent, Peppers confirmed that the transcript was his and stated that there was "no academic fraud." University chancellor Holden Thorp later apologized to Peppers.