Staff Writer
According
to an academic report by former federal prosecutor Kenneth Wainstein, the
University of North Carolina’s alleged academic fraud has been going on for 18
years and involved a large number of students. Wainstein’s investigation into the school came after several accusations
against the university. Student athletes
at the school were directed to classes that never met. This was done as a way to keep the GPA’s of
the athletes high enough to maintain eligibility in sports. Many of the “paper classes” were found in the
African and Afro-American Studies Department (AFAM), which is run by Dr. Julius
Nyang’oro. Nyang’oro, along with
department manager Deborah Crawford, knew that the classes were supposed to be
easy and gave out abnormally high grades.
In fact, the only graded assignment given in many of the classes was a
single research paper due at the end of the semester.
Although
the report came out on Oct. 14, the allegations against the school have been
ongoing and have resulted in an eight month investigation. The results of the investigation have
revealed some disturbing facts about the university’s policies relating to
student athletes.
Out
of the 97,600 undergraduates during the 18 years when the fraud was taking
place, 3,100 students were affected by the fake classes. In between 1999 and 2011, 963 football
players enrolled in AFAM classes. From
1999 to 2009, 226 players in the men’s basketball program registered for
classes in the department. At first the
school maintained that the issue was of an academic nature and didn’t
specifically involve athletics. Despite
this claim, the investigation’s findings show that a disproportionate number of
student athletes were in the AFAM classes.
Of the students registered in the lecture classes, 47.6% were athletes. The students who took the fraudulent classes
and received a degree will likely keep their degrees.
Wainstein
says that the football counselors were aware of AFAM and its purpose to keep
students in sports. Going even further,
the counselors worked with faculty in the AFAM department to figure out what
grades were necessary. Head men’s
basketball coach Roy Williams claims that he had no idea about the classes and
that he had expressed concerns over the high enrollment of his players.
As
a result of Wainstein’s report, nine faculty members have been
disciplined. Tom Ross, the UNC system
president, says that the college will implement policies to prevent scandals
like this from occurring at the school again.
He says that the fraud is a “horrible chapter in the history of this
great university, and we would all agree that it continued unchecked for way
too long.”
The
fraud has greatly hurt the reputation of the athletics programs at the school,
which were highly regarded for their integrity as well as success. When asked if the fraud has impacted his
views of the school and if it will change his feelings about applying, Apex
High junior Kevin Lane said, “Yeah. It
actually has because now I feel that the whole school may be corrupt.” On the other hand, some people haven’t let
their views of the school be changed.
Dylan Tastet, a senior at Apex High, said, “I’ll still apply because I’m
not an athlete and I feel that it only affects the athletes.”
Jeannette
Hill, an administrator at Apex High, attended UNC and received a degree in
Middle Grades Education. She is proud of
the school and is saddened by the scandal.
“I’m disappointed. I know that I
went to class and did my work. People
could be feeling like even the non-athletes didn’t do anything. I feel like people may look at the whole
school as being un-competitive.” When
asked if she saw any signs of athletic favoritism while attending the
university, she said that she hadn’t. “I
took geology and there were a lot of football players in that class. People called it ‘rocks for jocks’ because it
was looked at as the easy science class.
However, I took Russian History and there were basketball players in
there. The athletes were always expected
to show up to class except for the days when they were out of town for a
game. Clearly they weren’t in no show
classes.”
In
order to repair the reputation of the school, steps must be taken. “I wish that they would come up with a list of
what athletes are expected to do,” says Hill.
“Things like tutoring or stuff like that…I get that they are there for
both academics and sports, but the point is to leave there with a degree. The athletes should have general expectations
or rules that they follow.”
