Welcome to another episode of Universities Behaving Badly.
Today we have a special guest — The University of North Carolina.
No really, the pleasure is ours. Rarely have we seen such a long-lasting, widespread academic fraud that you have allegedly committed.
For 18 years, you funneled athletes into hollow “GPA booster” courses meant to inflate grades and keep them eligible to play. That’s according to a scathing 131-page independent report released Wednesday. The report says some 3,100 students were involved, but also says that is likely a fraction of the real number.
That’s brazen stuff. As far as selling your soul as an “institution of higher education” for the dollars and prestige that come with big-time athletics, Dr. Faust would be proud.
But don’t just take my praise. Here’s a special message from Gerald Gurney, president of the Drake Group, which advocates for academic integrity in the NCAA.
“I can safely say that the scope of the 20-year UNC fraud scandal easily takes the prize for the largest and most nefarious scandal in the history of NCAA enforcement. The depth and breadth of the scheme — involving counselors, coaches, academic administrators, faculty, athletic administrators, etc. — eclipses any previous case,” Gurney said in a statement.
Oh North Carolina, you reaped the benefits of your misbehavior. You won three men’s basketball championships during the course of the alleged fraud. Other sports saw huge gains in enrollment and championships as well.
But as a beacon of education, what lessons have you taught?
• That athletes get special treatment.
• That despite your lip-service to bettering the minds of young adults to win in the game of life, the real measure of success is chasing money, power and influence. At least that’s what you’ve equipped your athletic department to do.
• That once your use as an athlete is over, we’re done with you. We’ll coddle you in college, but leave you unprepared and unwise when you face a real world that doesn’t care what you did in college.
If you cared about college athletes, you’d make clear that about one-percent of them will go pro. You have two-thirds of your life to live after college, and we’ll prepare you for that. But that doesn’t sell well on the recruiting trail, does it?
Anyway, North Carolina, thanks for being here on Universities Behaving Badly. You were a much better guest than Florida State, whose academic scandal in 2009 involved a measly 60 athletes.
We’d love to have you back sometime. But it’s OK if you don’t.
There will be another misbehaving college next year.
