College president calls on Univ. of N. Carolina to lose accreditation over athlete grading fraud

American Thinker ^ | 10/28/2014 | Thomas Lifson

[SeekAndFind]

There is no question that the University of North Carolina committed fraud for almost 2 decades by giving fake grades to college athletes taking fake or non-existent course, in order to profit from football and basketball revenues. While the University is blaming a low level administrator, there is plenty of reason to suspect that senior levels knew or should have known of the fraud, as Robert Weissberg points out today on our pages.

So far, almost everyone has discussed penalties being exacted on the University’s athletic programs, but today Brian C. Rosenberg, president of Macalester College, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education (hat tips: Instapundit and Taxprofblog) convincingly argues that the appropriate penalty is loss of accreditation:

This is an issue of institutional integrity, a violation of the most basic assumption upon which the credibility of any college or university is based: that the grades and credits represented on the transcripts of its students are an accurate reflection of the work actually done. Absent this assurance, a transcript—a degree—from the institution has lost its meaning.

What has been uncovered in the Wainstein report at Chapel Hill is not an isolated incident but a barely concealed process of falsification that persisted for well over a decade, involved more than one in five of all the university’s athletes during that period, and was either known to or willfully ignored by many officials in positions of responsibility.

Accreditation for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is provided by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Here is one of the “Core Requirements for Accreditation” as specified by SACS:

[driftdiver]

Take any sport awards away as well.

[wrench]

2 decades? They have been doing that since the early 70s that I know of, likely longer.

[grania]

How about the students with bogus degrees having them revoked? And those who taught the courses, even if they were just following orders, lose their teaching licenses?

I doubt it's just a UNC problem. What I wonder is how many people ended up in jobs where lives are at stake because false credentials got them into jobs or graduate schools for which they weren't qualified.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: 2 decades? They have been doing that since the early 70s that I know of, likely longer.

For those who don’t know, the basketball great Michael Jordan was an athlete of UNC. I don’t know what degree he got from the University.

[elpadre]

Since the social revolution of the 60’s, UNC has changed a great deal and is now a hub of liberalism in the state.

The academic fraud uncovered is typical liberalism.

[reg45]

How about voiding all the degrees granted by the institution for the period of the infraction? Make all the graduates repeat all of their work - at no charge of course, since they didn’t get their money’s worth the first time.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Loss of accreditation plus placing athletes on the same admissions standards of everyone else.

A D-1 institution that admits a 2.0 GPA is a disgrace

[TomGuy]

LOL

If they started pulling accreditations from colleges involved in athletic fraud, there would be few accredited colleges remaining in a year.

And it has been going on much, much, much longer than 2 decades.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: How about voiding all the degrees granted by the institution for the period of the infraction?

That wouldn’t be fair to all those who WORKED HARD for their degrees.

[stephenjohnbanker]

All of the football schools do it. It is a joke to single one out. USC puts their favs in Corvettes and condos in Beverly Hills. LOL

[Resolute Conservative]

You want it partially fixed? Put a minor league/farm level in between college and pro like in baseball.

[BilLies]

I didn’t see any mention of covering up the rape cases at NC and other colleges.

[longtermmemmory]

how about the title nine programs that were created to shut up desk jockeys

[dead]

Only half the students were athletes. I know that that's a lot, but the scandal is bigger than athletics and goes to the heart of liberal academia.

The scandal is that African American studies was a complete joke at UNC. There was no demand for, or even expectation of, academic rigor.

It was a three card monte game, designed to hand out college degrees to unqualified black students who didn't have to pay for school, didn't have to do any classwork, and would then be dumped on the workforce and scooped up by corporations facing hiring quotas.

It was about teaching black Americans to get angry about history and game the system going forward. The Marxists want to destroy the entire capitalist system and this reparation/anger racial game was a small part of the machine they are building. And the university's leftwing administration was completely on board with the plan.

Other universities do not want to pursue this beyond an athletic scandal, because none of them want the academic integrity of their own "African American studies" programs to fall under any kind of spotlight.

[rrrod]

Yep...go after the sleazy profs....admins..then the athletes.

[quadrant]

UNC lose its accreditation? Never happen.

[buffaloguy]

I wonder what Mike Adams has to say about this?

[driftdiver]

What are the odds this is happening at every major university?

[The_Reader_David]

Revoking accreditation punishes innocent — students part way thorough degrees, faculty who had nothing to do with the fraud.

Make the punishment fit the crime. Shut down the entire UNC intercollegiate athletic program. It’s not like the donations it generates get into the academic side of the university (except for the little leakage caused by athletic scholarships paying tuition into the general tuition fund).