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UNC report finds 18 years of academic fraud to keep athletes playing
CNN ^ | October 25, 2014 | Sara Ganim and Devon M. Sayers

Posted on 11/01/2014 5:37:47 PM PDT by grundle

For 18 years, thousands of students at the prestigious University of North Carolina took fake "paper classes," and advisers funneled athletes into the program to keep them eligible, according to a scathing independent report released Wednesday.

"These counselors saw the paper classes and the artificially high grades they yielded as key to helping some student-athletes remain eligible," Kenneth Wainstein wrote in his report.

Ex-UNC star: Fake classes helped me play UNC report: Thousands took fake classes

In all, the report estimates, at least 3,100 students took the paper classes, but the figure "very likely falls far short of the true number."

For five years, UNC has insisted the paper classes were the doing of one rogue professor: the department chair of the African-American studies program, Julius Nyang'oro. Wainstein's report spread the blame much farther.

It also revealed that it was Nyang'oro's assistant, Debbie Crowder, who actually created the paper classes out of sympathy for athletes and other students who were not "the best and the brightest." Nyang'oro went along with them when he figured them out.

Crowder was such a fan of UNC sports, particularly basketball, that she would sometimes miss work after a loss, the report says.

It was well-known on campus that Crowder was a lax grader and gave high grades without regard for content, Wainstein said, emphasizing that she never gave a grade unless a student submitted a paper and did not change grades that were already given.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; US: North Carolina
KEYWORDS: college; education; football; northcarolina; sports
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1 posted on 11/01/2014 5:37:47 PM PDT by grundle
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To: grundle

Goodness I’m shocked. Where can I go to get my innocence back?


2 posted on 11/01/2014 5:40:33 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Thank you for self-censoring.)
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To: grundle

Why is this news? You’d have to be a dumbass to not know that this is rampant throughout ALL colleges. Duh!


3 posted on 11/01/2014 5:42:29 PM PDT by laweeks
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To: grundle

This is most likely just one of many similar examples of grade fraud going back decades. A Gentleman’s Agreement, in the old school manner of discretion, but for very high stakes. This will not likely ever be fully prosecuted. The roots are too deep and widespread.


4 posted on 11/01/2014 5:43:22 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: grundle
"I feel gutted."

- Monica Lewinsky

5 posted on 11/01/2014 5:44:32 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Thank you for self-censoring.)
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To: grundle

File photo --TV caption not directly applicable, here.

6 posted on 11/01/2014 5:49:56 PM PDT by gaijin
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To: grundle

“Hey guys my degree in African American Studies is worthless!”

“Yes, we knew that already.”


7 posted on 11/01/2014 5:51:32 PM PDT by relictele (Principiis obsta & Finem respice - Resist The Beginnings & Consider The Ends)
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To: grundle

Wonder if they are going to revoke any and all diplomas that were based upon these fake courses? Remember, these courses may have been fluff courses taken with the major in another field altogether.


8 posted on 11/01/2014 5:57:06 PM PDT by RetiredTexasVet (Put lipstick on a Communist and call it a Progressive, but it's still a Communist with lipstick.)
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To: relictele

Imagine how bad they’d feel if they really worked for it.


9 posted on 11/01/2014 6:09:17 PM PDT by PLMerite (Why did my tagline disappear? I didn't delete it.)
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To: relictele
Wonder of this could have happened in the Chemistry Department
10 posted on 11/01/2014 6:35:23 PM PDT by quadrant (1o)
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To: RetiredTexasVet

Wonder if they are going to revoke any and all diplomas that were based upon these fake courses?
Nope, just give the recipients government positions and with mail order graduate degrees they will move on up.


11 posted on 11/01/2014 6:55:02 PM PDT by Recompennation (Constitutional protection for all not ju st selectively for Democrats.)
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To: grundle

Maryland drove one player to classes, gave sweatshirts to 2 recruits, and had players sell their ACC tickets. The coach tried to hush it up. UNC will get nothing like the penalty Maryland got.

Carolina refs!


12 posted on 11/01/2014 7:40:44 PM PDT by icwhatudo (Low taxes and less spending in Sodom and Gomorrah is not my idea of a conservative victory)
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To: grundle

Let’s get to the important question — did it comply with Title IX?


13 posted on 11/01/2014 8:20:16 PM PDT by Rembrandt (Part of the 51% who pay Federal taxes)
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To: grundle

Sounds like reasonable grounds for the NCAA’s version of the ‘death penalty’ (ala SMU’s death penalty).


14 posted on 11/01/2014 8:56:48 PM PDT by harpu ( "...it's better to be hated for who you are than loved for someone you're not!")
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To: Steely Tom
Goodness I’m shocked. Where can I go to get my innocence back?

Penn State?

15 posted on 11/01/2014 9:00:00 PM PDT by Darth Reardon (Is it any wonder I'm not the president?)
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To: grundle

And don’t forget that UNC trashed the whistleblower who first revealed this sort of thing was going on.


16 posted on 11/01/2014 9:04:36 PM PDT by csn vinnie
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To: grundle

Somehow, this is whitey’s fault, just watch.


17 posted on 11/01/2014 10:24:03 PM PDT by spodefly (This is my tag line. There are many like it, but this one is mine.)
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To: laweeks
“You’d have to be a dumbass to not know that this is rampant throughout ALL colleges.”

It was rampant in high schools 60 years ago.

One kid I played ball with graduated from high school with 26 ‘D's” and the coach had to plead for those.

He went on to USC on a football scholarship.

They gave him a new Cadillac, an apartment for free, a job he didn't have to show up for, and automatic grades without attending class.

18 posted on 11/01/2014 10:36:51 PM PDT by dalereed
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To: laweeks
"dumbass"

I've been on sports forums where this scandal has been discussed. Like a few others on that forum, I expressed amazement that anybody should be shocked as this had been going on for many decades previously at all colleges that offered athletic scholarships. I further stated that it would be a miracle for most of the athletes in the major college football and basketball programs to be able to matriculate like other students. I said that it's a wonder how many of them managed to get out of grade school.

Naturally, I upset a number of lambs who were outraged that I would assume "graduates" of many inner city high schools did not have the proper academic credentials to succeed in college. And of course, I was called a racist.

Incidentally, one of my sisters was a math tutor at her college, and she used to laugh about the (mostly white) dumb jocks she had to help.

19 posted on 11/02/2014 7:51:16 AM PST by driftless2
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To: spodefly
"whitey's fault"

That's already happened. A student group at UNC has already condemned the "heteropatriarchial" or something like that power structure that objectifies and victimizes innocent black athletes. Because those athletes would all be chemistry, math, physics majors etc. if not for the sports programs. Sure.

20 posted on 11/02/2014 7:55:53 AM PST by driftless2
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