The University of North Carolina (UNC) admitted on Wednesday that its scandal surrounding academic fraud for student athletes is worse than the public previously was told.
The university was at the center of a debate about corruption in the $16 billion college athletics industry after it was discovered that they ushered basketball and football players into fake classes in order to keep them eligible to play.
The latest in a series of university-sponsored investigations revealed that from 1993-2011, around 3,100 students participated in “paper classes” with no faculty oversight and no actual class attendance. Almost half of the students enrolled in these fake classes were athletes. Many of the basketball and football players were directed to the classes via academic counselors who were specifically assigned to guide student athletes. “These counselors saw the paper classes and the artificially high grades they yielded as key to helping some student-athletes remain eligible,” said UNC in a written statement.
Black Studies was the department that hosted the fake classes, according to the findings of Kenneth Wainstein, the former federal prosecutor who led this latest investigation. The department offered hundreds of “irregular classes” under the direction of Julius Nyang’oro, ex-chairman of the department, and Deborah Crowder, his top administrative aide. No wrongdoing was found outside of that department. UNC noted that “no current coaches were involved or aware.” This finding is particularly offensive given that UNC’s elite athletes are disproportionately African American.
UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt said, “I apologize first to the students who entrusted us with their education and took these courses.” Folt, who became chancellor in 2013, promised rigorous academic reform and said that nine unspecified UNC employees would be disciplined or fired. “Mr. Wainstein has found that the wrongdoing at Carolina lasted much longer and affected more students than previously known. The bad actions of a few and the inaction of others failed the university’s students, faculty and alumni, and undermined the institution as a whole.”
A separate investigation is being conducted by the NCAA.
The entire scandal calls into question UNC’s 2009 men’s basketball championship team and the validity of the win.