Tarnished Heels -- Conclusion and Author's Note

Conclusion

After nearly four years of scandals there ultimately are very few definitive answers.  Not because of a lack of evidence, but rather due to an obstinate lack of cooperation and openness by UNC.  The university has held on tooth and nail to an ideal, all while trying to protect an image of past glories.  As a result, the public has slowly formed a jaded view of an institution that had once appeared to have some leaders of virtue.  What is left is a series of “what if” questions, the answers to which would likely have put an end to the scandal – one way or another – long beforehand.  Those answers would have also allowed a process of healing to begin, as well as shown that the university valued character.

-- What if all of the emails and phone records of Julius Nyang’oro had been released and thoroughly dissected to determine the original birthplace of the AFAM scandal?

-- What if the list of basketball and football players whose grades were changed had been released, and the effects of those grades on their GPA (and eligibility) were clearly outlined?

-- Along those lines, what if the transcripts of former athletes had been closely inspected to see if academic fraud (from no matter what academic department) had indeed kept them eligible to participate?

-- What if the hiring practices of those closely tied to athletics were more closely and honestly examined, as well as the connections between UNC alumni and people providing impermissible benefits to athletes?

-- What if more members of the university’s faculty had spoken up in defense of the school’s academic reputation, and against the protection that was continually offered to the major revenue sports teams?

-- What if the students and alumni who had earned honest degrees had spoken up in outrage for the same reason – the defense of the school’s academic, as opposed to athletic, reputation?

-- What if Chancellor Holden Thorp had refused the suggestions of the Board of Trustees and Board of Governors and decided against hiring a myriad of lawyers and public relations experts, and instead offered full transparency into the university’s darkest corners of the past? 

-- Along those lines, what if the school had not delayed and/or refused countless Freedom of Information Act requests from the media?

-- Essentially, what if those associated with the school had truly practiced what they professed to be the “Carolina Way,” and chosen to come clean and start the healing process much sooner?

            Sadly, the answer to the majority of those questions has become painfully obvious as each month and year has passed.  Data and information strongly suggests that many players would have been retroactively ineligible, wins would have been vacated, and yes – those national championship banners which constituted so much of the school’s national image and pride would have been null and void.  Despite NCAA president Mark Emmert having said that universities must eradicate the “sports are king” mindset when he handed down Penn State’s punishment in 2012, his bold sentiment has still not spread to encompass the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

* * *

             A quote used by some parents who strive to be solid role models goes as follows:  “Your children will become what you are; so be what you want them to be.”  That statement is attributed to David Bly, a Minnesota politician and former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, as well as a former teacher.  They are strong words to live by, especially for adults who truly believe in positive modeling for the young.  The words also provide an interesting case study for factions within UNC.

            If past and present players, coaches, students, professors, staff members, administrators, and any others claiming to be associated with Chapel Hill had any desire to set an example for those who might look up to them, yet took a hard look at their own actions and true motives, what would they see?  Would they see people they would want their children to become?  Hundreds, if not thousands, have chosen to remain silent in the face of overwhelming evidence of athletic/academic fraud, all apparently in order to protect an image and brand name.  Along the same lines, what would the adults associated with the NCAA see?  Based on past collegiate cases of impropriety, they have picked and chosen when to enforce their standards with favoritism apparently a guiding principle.  Despite what Mark Emmert had proclaimed in the past, the NCAA had still allowed sports to be king in Chapel Hill.

            The stark reality, however, is that it should have never been necessary to expect and require the NCAA to police and punish the activities that had taken place at UNC.  If the “Carolina Way” truly stood for all of the honorable platitudes that the school, its workers, and its graduates would have the rest of the world believe, then adults would have stood up, admitted what had transpired in the past, and done the right thing.  Because that was, after all, what the “Carolina Way” was supposed to mean. 

            The athletic/academic scandals within the halls of the campus buildings in Chapel Hill had long been the proverbial elephant in the room.  Unfortunately, athletic glory had been shown to be countless times more valuable than integrity.  From a center of higher learning, that is a sad testament not only to our society, but also to the morals and values of the adults associated with that school – adults whose charge was to set a solid example and foundation for the young.  A degradation of morals and character had stepped to the forefront over the past few years, and is what the leadership of the university appears to now stand for and accept as right. 

No matter what new information comes out, and whether the NCAA ever takes the correct action and fully investigates the fraud or not, the charade of morality will be over unless those adult factions actually own up to the errors of the past.  The honor and integrity of doing things “the right way” have sadly been overtaken by pride and poor judgment.  Until a true will to change is shown from the school itself, it will be negative traits that will define the university going forward.  Until that honest repentance happens, the “Carolina Way” will remain a remnant of the past.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE

When gathering data, researching articles and information, and then actually writing this book, a number of disturbing issues stood out.  Most of them were likely obvious from the narrative: the lack of those in positions of leadership to tackle a blatant problem head-on; cheating done for some sort of institutional, personal, and/or financial gain; and so forth.  By the end of the book, however, the aspect that was perhaps the most frustrating dealt with the abuse of our education system.  Education has been such a hot topic for years -- not just at select colleges and universities, but nationwide and on all levels from kindergarten on up.  Teachers in primary and secondary schools remain underpaid and underappreciated, yet are held to high (and ever-changing) testing standards, most of which are widely criticized as being largely without merit when it comes to properly preparing our youth for adulthood and careers.  That is, of course, a topic for an entirely different book.  But what has been shown throughout this account at UNC is an utter lack of respect for the education process.  The fraud, cheating, and cover-ups have essentially created a trickle-down effect from the university, to the students, to the public education system (high school on down), to the teachers who are trying diligently to prepare their students despite many obstacles, and even to parents who have questions and frustrations about their children's education and future well-being.  In essence, not only were morals and values compromised at the University of North Carolina, but so too was the supposed purpose and mission of an institute of higher learning: to teach students.  The result of the UNC scandal is one that reflects an overall de-emphasis on the value of an education in our country and, as a parent, that is truly troubling and sad.

Tarnished Heels -- Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Secretary of State football/agent indictments

            In early October it was announced that an Orange County (NC) grand jury had handed up five indictments related to the UNC football scandal from three years earlier.  According to an October 1, 2013, article posted by the local ABC station WTVD, the indictments were sealed and the names and charges were redacted in court documents that had been obtained.  The names would eventually be revealed in the coming weeks.

            The first indictment was for the UNC tutor who had been one of the centerpieces of the football academic scandal, Jennifer Wiley.  Now going under the married name of Jennifer Lauren Wiley Thompson, she had been one of 10 people found by the NCAA to have provided impermissible benefits – both academic and financial – to members of the UNC football team.  The WTVD article stated that in the course of a criminal investigation, agents with the Secretary of State’s office searched Wiley’s phone records – finding “extensive contact between Wiley and UNC-CH student athletes” and “direct contact between Wiley’s number and (sports agent) Peter Schaffer.”

            The second indictment, which was announced on October 9, was for a Georgia-based sports agent.  Terry Watson was indicted with 13 counts of providing cash or travel accommodations to former UNC players Marvin Austin, Greg Little, and Robert Quinn valued at nearly $24,000 in an effort to sign them, according to USA Today.  Watson also faced a count of obstruction of justice for not providing records sought by authorities.

            The third indictment was for Patrick Mitchell Jones, a real estate agent from Cartersville, Georgia, reported wncn.com on October 14, 2013.  He was indicted with one count of athlete-agent inducement for providing money in May 2010 through a woman identified as Constance Orr to entice Robert Quinn to sign with agent Terry Watson.  Orr was a student and softball athlete at UNC at the time.

            The final two indictments were for Willie James Barley, who was indicted on four counts of athlete-agent inducement, and Michael Wayne Johnson, who was indicted on three counts of athlete-agent inducement.  According to a November 14, 2013, article in The Daily Tar Heel, Barley was employed by Watson Sports Agency.  Johnson was a graduate of Durham (NC) Hillside High School and was a former quarterback at N.C. Central University.  Johnson later worked for Rosenhaus Sports Representation, but his biography had been taken down from the agency’s website by the time of the indictment.

* * *

            An article on chapelboro.com from October 10, 2013, warned that the initial five grand jury indictments might not be the end of the matter, as Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall had said there were other ongoing investigations involving UNC.  Of note was an investigation into the school’s AFAM department, which potentially held both academic and athletic ramifications.  Woodall had not announced who he and the SBI had been investigating on that front, but a question remained as to whether Julius Nyang’oro and possibly other members of the AFAM department had committed fraud by collecting paychecks for classes that were not taught.  More information on that front would surface in the coming months.

* * *

The essential (and unanswered) questions:

-- Had the athlete-agent aspect of the scandal been initiated completely from the outside, or had university representatives within the UNC infrastructure known about the ongoing impermissible benefits?

Tarnished Heels - Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

Carol Folt; Jan Boxill; James Moeser;

Nyang’oro and Crowder emails; public relations firms

            As the date drew nearer when Holden Thorp would be stepping down as Chancellor, his eventual replacement was announced.  Carol Folt, an environmental scientist who had worked for 30 years at Dartmouth College (including nearly a year as interim president), was tabbed to take over UNC’s top spot.  Based on quotes and details in an April 13, 2013, News and Observer article covering a reception held in Folt’s honor, she indicated that she was excited about her new duties.  “It’s the honor of a lifetime,” she said.  “I just can’t tell you how it feels.  It’s a little bit of a dream state.”  Folt said she had been on a tour of the campus, and that she and her husband had caught “Tar Heel fever” when they attended a Duke-UNC basketball game the previous month.  She did, however, allude to some of the issues that had plagued the school over the prior several years.  Referencing perspective, optimism, and opportunity, she said: “That’s what will carry us through the tough times.”  Indeed, she wouldn’t have long to wait for more “tough times” to surface.

* * *

            The previous chapter discussed requests for public documents, and the often difficult obstacles the media had faced to get many of its requests fulfilled.  Several documents were released in May, however, and they led to more discoveries of possible improprieties.  According to a May 18, 2013, article in the News and Observer, a key UNC report from a year earlier had purposely omitted substantial information that would have painted athletics in a much more critical light.

            In July of 2012 a special faculty report on the academic fraud (initially discussed in Chapter Eight) suggested that academic counselors may have steered athletes to fraudulent classes in the AFAM department.  A request by the newspaper for emails and other correspondence related to that report had finally been filled by the school, and the details revealed some interesting final-day edits.  Earlier drafts of the report (but not the final version) had specifically mentioned Deborah Crowder, the former assistant in the AFAM department, and also noted her connections to athletics. 

            The earlier draft had the following statement:  “Although we may never know for certain, the involvement of Debbie Crowder seems to have been that of an athletic supporter who managed to use the system to ‘help’ players; she was extremely close to personnel in athletics.”   However, documentation showed that Jan Boxill, chairwoman of the school’s Faculty Executive Committee and also a former academic counselor for athletes, wanted the statement cut because in her opinion it amounted to hearsay.  She told the authors of the report that other professors, whom she did not identify, raised that concern.  The final version did in fact make a change and read as follows:  “Although we may never know for certain, it was our impression from multiple interviews that a department staff member managed to use the system to help players by directing them to enroll in courses in the African and Afro-American Studies department that turned out to be aberrant or irregularly taught.”  The final version had no specific mention of Crowder, and more importantly no mention of her being “extremely close” to athletics. 

            The May 18 N&O article went on to make it clear that the information about Crowder was not hearsay.  Crowder’s ties to the athletics department had been reported by the paper in June of 2012, and were also later acknowledged in the Martin report.  As mentioned earlier, Martin never interviewed Crowder.  He had, however, received both versions of the faculty report in question.  Why no mention of Boxill’s requested edit was ever made in his report is unknown.  Furthermore, other records showed numerous bogus classes that appeared to have been set up by Crowder.  Athletes accounted for all but eight of the 56 students enrolled in nine specific classes.  Those enrollments included 31 football players and eight basketball players, all of which further cemented the “not hearsay” stance of the newspaper.  It was extremely unclear, therefore, why the authors of the faculty report gave in to Boxill’s request.  More details on the matter would surface several months in the future, however.

* * *

            As Holden Thorp’s tenure as chancellor continued to draw to its end, more controversy arose, but this time by his own doing.  He had said in April of 2013 that he felt college presidents had pressing demands and therefore should leave sports to athletics directors.  That rubbed many people the wrong way, especially at UNC.  Hodding Carter III was a UNC professor and former Knight Foundation president.  The goal of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics was to ensure that intercollegiate athletics programs operated within the educational mission of their colleges and universities.  In a May 19, 2013, N&O article, Carter acknowledged that college sports can take a leader down fast, but said that Thorp’s proposal was way off base.  “You really have got to get control of (big-time college sports), but you don’t get control of it by letting the guy who raised Godzilla become the person who now is supposed to supervise Godzilla, and that’s what the athletic directors are, and the conference guys.”

            Thorp indicated that he knew his suggestion would cause waves.  “Bill Friday’s ghost and Hodding Carter and all those people are ready to kill me,” he said.  “They don’t admit that their presidential control idea didn’t work.”  It certainly hadn’t worked in the case of Thorp, the newspaper wrote, who said he took the job with no idea about the athletics minefield ahead.  Too often, Thorp said, he found himself in front of microphones trying to explain the various scandals and pledging to fix them. 

            Looking back, Thorp said he would have done some things differently.  “But it’s always easy to see those things at the end,” he said.  “It’s real easy to look at somebody else’s crisis and know what to do.  It’s a whole different deal when you have a big bureaucratic organization, trying to make quick decisions and getting people on board.”  And “a big bureaucratic organization” was a good analogy for UNC’s leadership over the previous three years of problems.

            The academic scandal in the African Studies department was perhaps the most embarrassing episode to Thorp, but it did have one good result, he said: that a myth had been deconstructed.  “It was a failure of lots of people over a lot of years to detect it,” he said.  “I think that was fueled by this notion that these kinds of things didn’t happen here.”  As for Carol Folt, the woman who would be taking over his position in a couple of months, Thorp had a specific suggestion for her:  Watch the TV drama “Friday Night Lights.”  Thorp said he wished he had watched it five years ago, because an education about athletics would have come in handy.

* * *

During this same timeframe Holden Thorp’s predecessor also spoke up.  James Moeser was chancellor at the school from 2000 to 2008, which incidentally happened to be some of the prime years of the athletic/academic scandal.  Displaying an obstinate loyalty to his former employer, Moeser voiced his displeasure over the media’s coverage of the academic scandal that had involved countless UNC athletes.

            In a mid-May interview in the Chapel Hill Magazine, Moeser said: “I’m really angry about (the media).  I think they target people, and they take pleasure in bringing people down.  I think their real goal here was to remove banners from the Smith Center.”  As the complaints were seemingly directed at the Raleigh News and Observer, which had been unyielding in its coverage of UNC’s various athletic scandals over the previous three years, Moeser’s interview was given attention in a May 20, 2013, article by the newspaper.  The remarks were part of a short article in which Moeser defended “The Carolina Way,” wrote reporter Dan Kane.  That term had become a motto for the university and had formally been a source of pride and chest-thumping from both its alums and nonaffiliated sports fans.  It had recently taken a beating amid the various scandals, however.

            When Moeser referred to the “banners” in the Smith Center, he was undoubtedly talking about the three National Championships that were won by the men’s basketball teams – teams which featured numerous players who majored in an African and Afro-American Studies department that had been proven to be rampant with academic fraud.  Despite the apparently obvious connections between those championships and the proven bogus classes and degrees, Moeser seemed more concerned with defending an ideal.  “I think (the media) has really put a target on the university,” Moeser had told the Chapel Hill Magazine, “and they’ve treated The Carolina Way in a very cynical fashion, trashing it, really, and indicating The Carolina Way was always just a fiction, a façade we put in front of misbehavior.  I really resent that.  I think The Carolina Way is genuine, I think it’s real.” 

            John Drescher, executive editor of the N&O, disputed Moeser’s take on the media coverage.  He provided several quotes for Kane’s article, and would follow up with an editorial the next day.  In Kane’s May 20 piece, Drescher said, “We weren’t trying to get anybody, but we were trying to get to the bottom of what happened at UNC.  Most of our readers understood that and appreciate the digging we did.”  Others in the media also supported the N&O’s work.  John Robinson, the former editor of The (Greensboro) News & Record, wrote in his blog, “Media disrupted,” that Moeser didn’t understand the media’s job in an open society.  “What actually has happened is that the N&O discovered some rot in the internal workings at UNC in athletics and academia and, like an infection in the body, you have to keep going after it to get rid of it all,” Robinson wrote.  “That’s what the N&O has done and is still doing.”

            Even some of the faculty at the university said Moeser’s remarks were misguided, Kane’s article stated.  Michael Hunt, a history professor emeritus, said Moeser may have been reacting to the criticism leveled by rival fans.  “He may be reflecting the embattled feeling that the administrators are feeling,” Hunt said.  “The problem is they are dragging this out, and I don’t think anybody is saying – I haven’t heard a word saying – ‘Oh, the N&O’s persecuting Chapel Hill.’ Nobody is saying that except for the people who are trying to keep the lid on.”  Moeser himself could not be reached for comment.

            A scathing and direct editorial by executive editor John Drescher came out a day later.  In it he countered Moeser, and said the former chancellor had taken up a tactic usually preferred by losing politicians: saying “they’re out to get us.”  When responding to the accusation that the media was trying to bring people (and banners) down, Drescher had this to say: “Moeser’s wrong, obviously.  If the media were any good at targeting people, they would have targeted him.  His successor, Holden Thorp, took over before the scandals broke and ended up taking the heat (and the fall) for problems that festered under his predecessor.”

            Drescher went on to allude to the “Carolina Way” that Moeser had opined about.  “UNC’s reputation for academic quality and aboveboard athletics has taken a hard hit.  The damage has been made far worse by the failure of university leaders to admit problems and search relentlessly for where the trouble began and where it spread.”  Finally, the executive editor reached the heart of the matter by way of a statement that could have been said about countless UNC, Board of Trustees, and Board of Governors leaders over the past three years:  “But what is Moeser angry about?  Not about what happened or how it has been handled.  He’s angry about what got reported.  He thinks reporting that seeks to find the extent of the problems is a mean-spirited effort to strip a proud university of its greatest athletic laurels, the banners from its national men’s basketball titles.  No, it’s an attempt to do what universities also should do: Seek the truth.”

* * *

More damaging information would surface less than three weeks later, and again it was due to the school (finally) releasing public information that they had long tried to conceal.  A set of newly released emails was the focus of a June 8, 2013, article in the News and Observer, and a key confirmation was the very close relationship former AFAM chairman Julius Nyang’oro had with the program that tutored athletes.  The emails in question were released by the university as part of a public records request that had been filed nearly a year earlier.  Inexplicably, none of the details within the correspondence had shown up in the numerous investigations conducted since the school confirmed the existence of the fraudulent courses in May 2012, the paper wrote.  That was once again proof that Martin and Baker Tilley either never checked the emails of Nyang’oro and Crowder, or that the emails were checked and summarily ignored.

UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp and other officials had long said that the Academic Support Program for Student Athletes had not collaborated with anyone in the AFAM department to create the classes that helped to keep athletes eligible to play sports.  Some of the emails strongly suggested otherwise.  One of the exchanges was between Nyang’oro and Jaimie Lee, an academic counselor for athletes.  “I failed to mention yesterday that Swahili 403 last summer was offered as a research paper course,” wrote Lee.  “I meant to (ask), do you think this may happen again in the future?? If not the summer, maybe the fall?”  To which Nyang’oro responded:  “Driving a hard bargain; should have known… :) Will have to think about this, but talk to me….”  Nyang’oro did not schedule the Swahili class, but he did create another one for the summer.  Later that day he emailed Lee informing her of the new class.  Those discussed courses had shown up as ones that should have been taught lecture-style, but had instead been turned into “paper” classes that only required a term paper at the end.

One of the university’s long-standing talking points was that non-athletes took the fraudulent classes as well, which should keep the scandal out of the NCAA’s realm.  School officials said that it wasn’t only athletes who benefitted from the bogus classes.  However, other parts of the email records may have provided a clue as to why non-athletes were in some of the classes.  In early 2005, administrative assistant Deborah Crowder raised concerns that too many students were seeking to enroll in independent studies within her department.  She had told one advising official that word about the department’s independent studies “had sort of gotten into the frat circuit.”  That would seem to imply that the preference was for the courses to be reserved for a very specific subset of UNC’s student population, because as the records showed, the largest percentage taking the courses was athletes.  Considering Crowder’s close ties to athletics (and especially the men’s basketball program), the emails show the distinct possibility that “regular” students signed up for multiple fraudulent AFAM courses against the preferences of athletes at UNC.

            As usual, school officials largely chose to avoid the newly uncovered revelations.  Attempts by the N&O to reach Thorp and Karen Gil, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences (which oversaw advising and the African Studies department), were unsuccessful.  A UNC spokeswoman, Karen Moon, said the newly released correspondence contained no “new information” about the Academic Support Program for Athletes.  But Peter Hans, the chairman of the UNC System Board of Governors, disagreed.  “This is additional confirmation that there was far too cozy a relationship between the academic advisers in the athletic department and Nyang’oro and Crowder,” Hans said.

            Jaimie Lee still worked for the school’s support program at the time of the article, but could not be reached for comment.  Like Deborah Crowder, Lee also had interesting connections.  Before joining UNC as a counselor, she worked for a charitable nonprofit founded by former UNC basketball players, the newspaper reported. 

            The new emails also showed that a tutor, Suzanne Dirr, had drawn up “topic” papers for athletes that were virtual outlines of papers they would have to write for classes.  Interestingly, Dirr submitted her suggested topics to Crowder for approval – despite the fact that Crowder was not a faculty member, but only an administrative assistant.  Crowder’s importance to the AFAM department (and the UNC athletic infrastructure) continued to become more and more evident with each new set of released information.  Dirr died in 2008; Crowder continued to decline numerous requests for interviews.

            Madeline Levine, a former interim dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, said she was appalled to see how much work the tutors had done for the athletes in those classes.  “It looks really corrupt, academically corrupt, to me,” said Levine, who is now retired.  She was also troubled by the tone of the emails between Nyang’oro and various academic counselors.  Levine said that while some of it might have been in jest, it suggested a relationship in which Nyang’oro was doing favors for the counselors.  In one email from September 2009, Cynthia Reynolds, a former associate director who oversaw academic support for football players, told Nyang’oro in an email that “I hear you are doing me a big favor this semester and that I should be bringing you lots of gifts and cash???????”  She also suggested that she and Nyang’oro talk about students’ assignments via “phone call, meeting or drinks, whichever you prefer.” 

            The article reported that on three occasions the records showed that Nyang’oro and his family were offered football tickets and food.  In one email, Reynolds told the former AFAM chairman he would be “guest coaching,” which meant that he could watch the game with the team on the sidelines.  Reynolds left the program in 2010.  An earlier chapter recounted her claim that she had been the victim of age discrimination.  She could not be reached for the article.

            The “no comment” approach continued to be the status quo, as was the practice of dodging questions by university officials.  Beth Bridger, who replaced Reynolds and also showed up in emails, could not be reached for comment.  UNC spokeswoman Karen Moon would not specify who among the various investigators into the academic fraud scandal had received the Crowder and Nyang’oro correspondence given to the News and Observer.  Moon said it was “considered during past investigations, in which the university cooperated fully.”  She also did not explain why it took nearly a year to produce the emails for the N&O.

            Perhaps the most important aspect of the new emails was that they did not represent the entire record.  Karen Moon said other correspondence had been withheld because of student privacy concerns or because it was a personnel matter.  The university could have released additional correspondence with redactions to protect student identities, the newspaper pointed out, or UNC could make the personnel information public under a provision in state law that allowed its release to protect the integrity of the institution. The school chose to not make those efforts, however.  That was likely as telling as the actual emails that were released.

* * *

            Signs had long pointed to a unified “public relations” front by the school, as officials associated with UNC (and even entities such as the System’s Board of Governors) had parroted some of the same catch phrases when commenting on the athletic/academic scandals.  An article published by the News and Observer on June 8, 2013, finally gave some clear evidence as to why those talking points had been so similar.  Public documents that had been released showed that there had been a dedicated PR and communications effort over the previous two years that had cost the university more than $500,000.

            The breakdown of those bills was as follows:  The Fleishman-Hillard firm received $367,000 for 22 months of work; Doug Sosnik, an NBA consultant, received $144,000 for 10 months’ work; and Sheehan Associates of Washington, D.C., received nearly $20,000 for work performed on “two occasions,” a university official said.  As was the case with the nearly one million dollars that was paid to the Baker Tilley firm during the Martin investigation, the university’s privately funded foundation paid for all of those PR costs.

            Some of the specific correspondence between Sosnik and the university was especially revealing.  A former counselor to President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky embarrassment, the key message Sosnik wanted reinforced at UNC was that the school’s scandal was in the past; the university had made reforms and would become stronger as a result.  Records also showed that UNC administrators, with the help of Sosnik and a member of Fleishman-Hillard, fought back when Mary Willingham told the News and Observer that school staff had used no-show classes to keep athletes eligible.  The school administrators and public relations consultants reviewed and offered edits to a letter to the N&O editorial page written by Steve Kirschner, an athletics department spokesman.  The letter sought to refute Willingham’s claims.  Furthermore, some of the correspondence showed that UNC trustee Don Curtis and Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham didn’t think the NCAA would dig into the academic fraud after former Governor Jim Martin’s investigation concluded that it was an academic scandal and not an athletic scandal.

* * *

            According to a June 20, 2013, article in the News and Observer, UNC was handed down a lenient response from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS), which had earlier been on campus following the revelation of academic fraud within the AFAM department.  It was announced that the school would be monitored in the future, but not sanctioned.  Other details were that 384 students who took fraudulent classes from 1997 to 2009 would be given the opportunity to “make whole” their academic degrees.  Specific information regarding the method of completing those degrees was said to be forthcoming.

            Some on campus were appalled by the lack of action by the accrediting agency, the paper noted.  “It’s amazing.  I guess the flagship gets off the hook,” said Mary Willingham, the UNC reading specialist who used to work with athletes and who had been outspoken about the problems at the school.  “For me, it’s getting to the point where power is so much more important than justice.”

* * *

            As the month of June slowly came to an end, one more important article was released regarding the academic situation at UNC.  A June 29, 2013, piece by N&O reporter Dan Kane focused on the academic performance by the school’s athletes, and the stark drop that had happened over the previous several years.  According to recent academic progress statistics from the NCAA, the paper reported, UNC’s men’s basketball team – at one point the best in the Atlantic Coast Conference with a near perfect Academic Progress Rate (APR) score – had fallen to eighth place.  The school’s football team had recently been just a few academic points away from losing postseason eligibility.  Both teams had just scored their all-time lows on the APR.  UNC Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham and other officials declined to be interviewed for the article.  Not surprisingly, the years that UNC’s basketball and football teams scored well on the APR were ones in which athletes had been taking dozens of fraudulent classes within the AFAM department.  With that in mind, it could hardly be considered an unexpected coincidence that the APR score dropped following the exposure of the university’s athletic/academic scandal.

* * *

The essential (and unanswered) questions:

-- Why did the faculty authors of a July 2012 report allow their wording (in reference to Deborah Crowder) to be changed?

-- Other than free tickets and food, did Julius Nyang’oro receive any other gifts from athletic personnel in exchange for academic favors?

-- Why would Crowder be concerned that frat students were signing up for AFAM independent studies courses?

-- Why did athletic tutor Suzanne Dirr submit paper topics directly to Crowder – who wasn’t even a faculty member?

-- Why did none of the school’s prior investigations mention the revealing and damaging email exchanges conducted by Nyang’oro and/or Crowder?

-- Why did the university refuse to release the remainder of the Nyang’oro and Crowder emails, even in redacted form?

Tarnished Heels -- Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Public documents; Sunshine Day

            The Raleigh News and Observer had never come right out and blatantly said it, but there were certain suspicions that had long been asked via several social media sites: Had UNC intentionally delayed and/or stonewalled the release of certain public documents that could have provided insight into the various scandals, and which also could have caused further damage to the school’s reputation?  Based on the university’s extremely negligent response to numerous document requests that seemed to clearly fall under the Freedom of Information Act, the idea of an orchestrated delay certainly appeared to have merit.  That topic of freedom-of-information laws would arise in early March of 2013 due to the long delays some in the media had been subjected to by UNC.

            A “Sunshine Day” event was scheduled for Monday, March 11 in Raleigh.  A panel of individuals would be there to discuss public records.  An article ran in the News and Observer two days prior to the event, highlighting the frustrations that some in the media had felt over the previous year.  Written by reporter Dan Kane, the article stated that in the 18 months since UNC had first acknowledged academic fraud had permeated its campus, there had been several public reports and open meetings about the issues.  However, Kane noted that much remained unknown, in large part because the university had either not responded to numerous requests for information, or had outright rejected them.

            Kane pointed out that the work of Baker Tilly and Jim Martin did not closely examine paper records of enrollment in more than 40 fraudulent classes identified before the fall of 2011, nor did they identify how many of the 560 overall suspected grade changes involved players on the school’s football and men’s basketball teams – data that could have retroactively affected the eligibility of some athletes.  The newspaper filed a records request with UNC to obtain that information, and got a less than cooperative response: If Baker Tilly and Martin didn’t do the analysis, then it wasn’t going to be made available.  The News and Observer stayed above the belt and didn’t ask an obvious question, but many in social media did: UNC paid Baker Tilly nearly one million dollars, yet the firm couldn’t find the time to sit down and closely examine some paper records?  According to State Senator Thom Goolsby, the lack of information about the scandal was one reason that the university’s academic reputation continued to suffer.  “If the answers had been forthcoming in this, the story would have been over,” he stated.

            In all, university officials said they had received over 900 information requests in the three years since the first stages of the scandal become public, with roughly half coming from media entities.  Chancellor Holden Thorp attempted to address some of the “delay” concerns in a written statement.  “On the whole, we have made what I consider to be extraordinary efforts to provide the public with information about these issues,” Thorp said.  “We continually strive to improve our internal processes and the University’s capacity to respond to and communicate with those who are requesting public records, including members of the news media.  The principle of openness is important, and one about which we can all agree.”

            That “principle of openness” would seem to be a grey area, however, as evidenced by the amount of time it had taken to fill certain requests.  For example, the News and Observer had submitted information requests on various topics pertaining to the school’s scandal on the following dates: June 11, 2012; October 22, 2012; October 25, 2012; and February 14, 2013.  All of those had remained unfilled until just days prior to the March 9, 2013, article – and it was likely not a coincidence that they were filled just days prior to the Sunshine event where the importance of public records would be discussed.  Another request that was noted in Kane’s article – one asking for correspondence, supporting documentation and drafts related to an internal probe of academic fraud, which was submitted on June 20, 2012, remained unfilled.   Almost nine months had passed since its initial request.

* * *

            The March 9, 2013, article said that the newspaper had filed dozens of public records requests related to the scandal.  In some cases, the university had responded by providing revealing information.  For example, certain documents had shown the number of enrollments of football and men’s basketball players in certain no-show courses spanning as far back as 10 years.  Specific information was also revealed about the AFAM independent studies program.  However, despite the media having requested, received, and reported that information prior to the release of the Martin report, the Baker Tilly consultants and Martin excluded virtually all of it from their submitted report – for reasons unknown.  Or, at least, for reasons that could only be murmured by the media, but not proclaimed as outright accusations.

            In the many instances where the university had not filled the requests, however, often the school had not responded at all.  Some of those requested documents included records turned over to the State Bureau of Investigation, as well as documents that may have been generated when former AFAM chairman Julius Nyang’oro first spoke with university officials before he resigned from his position.  The article said that the lack of response on some requests troubled Wade Hargrove, chairman of UNC’s Board of Trustees.  A lawyer who specialized in the media business and public records, Hargrove said he had told university officials to be forthcoming and timely in responding to public records requests.  “On its face, it’s hard to understand why it takes this long to respond to some requests,” he said.  Yet the trend continued.  And if the chairman of a university’s Board of Trustees had no real influence to put an end to potential stonewalling, then that was very telling with regards to the pecking order of leadership at the school.

            Many critics continued to indicate that the lack of information from UNC suggested that the university was trying to keep the scandal from prompting a second NCAA investigation.  A follow-up visit by the NCAA, Kane wrote, would likely focus on men’s basketball – the school’s holy grail and the commodity it was most closely associated with in the public eye.  Gerald Gurney, a professor and former head of Academic Services for Athletes at the University of Oklahoma, said as much: “It is clear to me that the university does not wish to seek the truth because they are afraid of what the answer might be, and how it might affect their premier athletic program, which is men’s basketball.”

            The News and Observer reported that it had requested all correspondence between the NCAA and the university as it related to the academic fraud scandal.  As of the article’s press time, that request had only been partially fulfilled.  Senator Thom Goolsby said the UNC scandal was a big reason he was pushing legislation that would have created a misdemeanor crime for public officials who refused to provide public records.  Goolsby said he hoped the SBI investigation would answer how the scandal happened, who knew about it and why it took so long to become public.  He conceded, however, that it may not happen, since the SBI investigation pertained to criminal matters and not the extent (and initial intent) of the academic fraud.  “I know that there’s a lot of people in the legislature who are looking out for this, listening for this,” he said.  “We want answers, and I hope we’re going to get them.”  But like UNC’s Board of Trustees chairman Wade Hargrove, apparently state senators didn’t have much influence over the university’s actions, either.

* * *

            Two days later the “Sunshine Day” event panel discussion was held, and the News and Observer provided a recap article of several of the key points.  The March 11, 2013, article’s lead-in tied the topic to the piece that had been released two days earlier, which had detailed how UNC had long delayed the release of certain public documents.  Part of the Sunshine event dealt with discussing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, known as FERPA, which the university had long tried to use as an all-inclusive shield to keep from having to release information.  Many of those documents eventually became public anyway based on a judge’s ruling, saying that FERPA had its limits.  “A lot of times, FERPA is used as an excuse not to release anything,” said Lucy A. Dalglish, the journalism dean at the University of Maryland.  “But there is a lot of information that is release-able.  It can get tricky, but I don’t think FERPA protection extends as broadly as a lot of schools interpret it.” 

            Dalglish was among several speakers at the N.C. Sunshine Day event.  Others included Amanda Martin, general counsel for the N.C. Press Association; Dick Baddour, the former UNC athletics director; Kevin Schwartz, the general manager for the Daily Tar Heel newspaper; and Jon Sasser, attorney for former UNC football coach Butch Davis.  News and Observer reporter Dan Kane also had the opportunity to touch on several topics during the event.

            During a panel discussion on the UNC case, Schwartz said he believed the school had used the Federal Education Privacy Act as a tactic to stall media interest in the story, a sentiment long shared by most everyone not associated with the school.  Dick Baddour objected, however: “I don’t think there’s any evidence that the university was hiding behind FERPA.”  Baddour pointed out, though, that he was not speaking for the school; a representative for UNC was invited to join the panel but had declined.

            Despite having possibly been forced into an early retirement from the school, Baddour was still doggedly supportive of his former employer.  He criticized the News and Observer for publishing the transcript of UNC football player Julius Peppers.  Following a moment of stunned, flabbergasted silence by nearly all in attendance, reporter Dan Kane stated the obvious: the transcript had essentially already been “published” by the school itself, as UNC had allowed it to be publicly housed and viewed on its website for years.  Kane also reiterated that he had asked the university several times about a “test transcript,” giving officials a chance to remove it from public view before it was identified and eventually connected to Peppers by fans of N.C. State University.

            The Sunshine Day event brought more attention to the UNC scandal, and also the institution’s practices of withholding information that would likely further damage the school’s athletics programs.  It showed that Baddour stood by the school’s past actions, but also that Kane and others in the media would continue to pursue the truth.  Despite being a graduate from UNC’s School of Law, Amanda Martin, the lawyer representing the N.C. Press Association, said in reference to the past (and continued) legal pursuit of those public records: "I didn’t relish suing my Alma Mater, but sometimes people just need suing.”  Since a formal representation from UNC had declined the invite, an official response from the university on the event’s various topics was left to guesswork.

* * *

            More than a month later two articles came out on April 18, 2013.  The first appeared in the News and Observer and focused on Chancellor Holden Thorp, who would soon be stepping down at UNC and taking a job at Washington University in St. Louis.  The article in part talked about the overwhelmingly negative effect dealing with athletics could have on a university leader.  Thorp went as far as to suggest that dealing with intercollegiate athletics was the most important part of the chancellor’s job.  “That’s not right that it’s that way,” Thorp said.  “We should try to figure out a way to change that.  But for the time being, if you’re running a school that has big-time sports, if there’s a problem, it can overwhelm you.”

            Thorp said he had been so distracted by athletics that it was difficult to accomplish other priorities.  The article said that when he became chancellor five years earlier, he never would have dreamed of the problems he would face in athletics.  One of the biggest ongoing issues was the massive academic fraud scandal that was heavily centered around athletics.  Thorp acknowledged that he was caught up in the egotistical thought that an athletic scandal could never happen in Chapel Hill.  “In order to be vigilant you can’t be telling yourself, ‘Oh we’re one of the places that never gets in trouble,’” he said.  “That’s part of what hurt us.”

* * *

            The second News and Observer article released on April 18, 2013, focused on university employee Mary Willingham.  She had come forward the previous November to reveal a pattern of athletic/academic cheating that she had observed over multiple years.  Despite the fact that much of her information had been inexplicably ignored by former Governor Jim Martin and the Baker Tilly review team, Willingham still won the Robert Maynard Hutchins Award from The Drake Group – validating her as a reputable source.  It was given annually to a university faculty or staff member who defended the institution’s academic integrity in the face of college athletics.

            In her comments after receiving the award, Willingham spoke more about how athletes stayed eligible at UNC, and how many of them were ill-prepared for college level work.  “Many athletes told me what they would like to study,” she said.  “And listen to what we did.  Instead, we directed them to an array of mismatched classes that have a very, very long history of probable (athletic) eligibility.  And sadly, it’s still happening.”

            Willingham went on to talk about her struggle to combat the system at UNC.  She said that NCAA paperwork would arrive annually that required a signature and promise that she hadn’t seen cheating, or been a part of it.  “I’ve got to tell you that most of the time, I scribbled my initials on it,” she said.  “So yeah, I lied.  I saw it – I saw cheating.  I saw it, I knew about it, I was an accomplice to it, I witnessed it.  And I was afraid, and silent, for so long.”

            Perhaps it was that fear and silence that had long kept almost every other member of UNC’s faculty from speaking up about the academic scandal, and the role that athletics had played in it.  Allen Sack, a member of the faculty at the University of New Haven and the president of The Drake Group, said that faculty members should stand up and say, “No, we’re not going to tolerate this anymore.”  That had clearly not happened at UNC, though.

            The article stated that during her 20-minute speech, Willingham strongly criticized the NCAA – calling the organization a “cartel.”  At the time of the article it had been nearly a year since reports of widespread athletic/academic fraud within the school’s AFAM department had arisen, yet the NCAA still hadn’t returned to reopen a formal investigation.  Willingham also expressed frustration at the amount of money the school had paid on consultants and reports related to the various scandals; consultants and reports that had also largely tried to turn the focus away from athletics.

* * *

            On April 19, 2013, the Raleigh News and Observer’s investigative reporting was honored with recognition in two national journalism contests.  In a staff report posted by the newspaper, it stated that the N&O’s reporting on academic and athletic scandals at UNC had won first place in the education writing category of the National Headliner Awards, which had been announced by the Press Club of Atlantic City.  The award honored three staffers – Dan Kane, J. Andrew Curliss, and Andrew Carter.  The UNC reporting also finished third in the investigative reporting category in the annual Associated Press Sports Editors contest.

* * *

The essential (and unanswered) questions:

-- Had UNC intentionally delayed and/or stonewalled the release of documents in an attempt to limit the damages caused by the ongoing scandals?

-- Despite charging UNC nearly one million dollars for its services, why had Baker Tilly not been able to find the time to closely examine paper records that existed prior to 2001?

-- Why had UNC continued to delay and withhold public documents, even after the chairman of its own Board of Trustees told university officials to be forthcoming and timely in responding to records requests?

Tarnished Heels -- Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Further depth of the academic scandal; Robert Mercer;

Board of Governors; SACS

            Shortly following the late-January retraction by Baker Tilly, an editorial would appear in the News and Observer written by John Drescher.  That piece would be important for a variety of reasons.  It mixed data and facts with numerous hard-hitting statements about the questionable thoroughness of the Martin investigation.  Of equal importance was the identity of the writer himself.  Not only was Drescher the executive editor of the N&O, but he was also a graduate of UNC.  As a result, he had proven himself to be one of the few individuals with any sort of past association with the school who was not afraid to decry the athletic/academic scandals as a series of deplorable acts which had resulted in little to no consequences.

            Drescher’s editorial recounted the events that led Baker Tilly to drop one of its key findings: that athletics officials and academic support officials had raised questions and concerns with the Faculty Committee on Athletics about certain courses.  That had been one of the main presumed “facts” within the Martin report that had tried to free athletics from taking primary blame in the scandal.  However, it was later shown to have never been the case. 

            Prior to the retraction, former Governor Martin had written: “I believe that findings and conclusions should be based on evidence, not hearsay and imagination.”  Drescher’s editorial responded with, “If only that were what Martin’s report did.”  Drescher talked about his past experience as a reporter on the Capitol beat, which coincided with the time when Martin was governor from 1985 to 1993.  Drescher had interviewed Martin several times, and indicated that Martin was smart and capable.  “But he’s an inexperienced investigator,” Drescher wrote, “and it showed in his report.  After athletic department officials told him they had raised red flags with the faculty committee, neither Martin nor Baker Tilly interviewed any of the faculty committee members, except for the NCAA representative.  That’s right: Gov. Martin never talked to the people he blamed for dropping the ball.”

            Drescher’s editorial went on to state that Martin and Baker Tilly were obligated to interview several members of the faculty committee for two primary reasons.  One was to make every effort to get to the truth.  The second was to give members of the committee a chance to respond to charges that they had heard concerns about possible academic abuse.  “There’s no acceptable explanation for why Martin and Baker Tilly didn’t interview these faculty members,” Drescher continued.  “Martin and Baker Tilly seemed more determined to absolve the athletic department of blame than to get to the bottom of what went wrong.”

            Despite members of the UNC System’s Board of Governors not thinking that the retraction damaged the rest of Martin’s findings, UNC Professor Jay Smith felt otherwise.  “The importance of this event cannot be overstated,” Smith wrote in The Herald-Sun of Durham.  “The validity of Martin’s interpretation of UNC’s troubles as ‘not an athletics scandal’ hinged on the anecdote about the FAC; the discrediting of that anecdote undermines the interpretive thrust of the entire report.”

            With Baker Tilley’s retraction, Drescher wrote, Martin had painted himself into a corner.  As noted in the previous chapter (and reiterated in the editorial), the only officials Baker Tilly had found who knew about the fraudulent classes, other than the department head and his assistant, were from the athletics department and the faculty representative to the NCAA.  “In trying to get to the bottom of the scandal,” Drescher said, “it’s helpful to ask the basic questions… What did he know?  When did he know it?  I’d pose a third question: When he knew, what did he do about it?  Martin and Baker Tilly tried to show that the UNC athletic department was pure.  Instead, cornered by the facts, they’ve unintentionally shown that athletic department officials suspected academic fraud years ago and did little or nothing about it.”

* * *

            Months later the true cost of the Martin investigation would be revealed.  According to a copy of UNC’s agreement with Baker Tilly, the firm was to provide five employees at a combined cost of $1,520 per hour for the work.  Martin himself had reportedly volunteered his services to the university, only being reimbursed for approximately $5,000 in expenses.  Baker Tilly, however, had charged UNC a total of $941,000.  Karen Moon, a university spokeswoman, would later tell the News and Observer that all of the money paid to the firm had come from a university foundation that took in private donations, so no taxpayer dollars had been spent.  And despite the fact that Baker Tilly had been forced to retract one of the most vital claims in the entire report that had aimed to absolve athletics of any wrongdoing, Moon said: “Their analysis was independent, objective and thorough.”

* * *

            Just as Baker Tilly was retracting its earlier backing of that key component of the Martin report, updated data on the scandal was released regarding the information that was uncovered.  In a January 25, 2013, article in the News and Observer, it was revealed that athletes who took a subset of 172 fraudulent classes within the AFAM department had an average grade of 3.56, which was between a B-plus and A-minus.  Those classes had also accounted for 512 total grade changes during the time period that had been examined.  The period covered in the new data did not extend prior to the fall of 2001, because the report indicated that information did not exist in electronic format beforehand.  In all, 216 suspect courses were identified back to 1997, with 560 grade changes that lacked proper authorization. 

            The extremely high average grade for athletes in the fraudulent courses should have raised a major red flag.  The transcript of Julius Peppers showed that his grades in AFAM courses were considerably higher than in his other subject areas, and essentially had kept him eligible to participate in sports.  An average grade of 3.56 amongst athletes for over a decade likely had similar effects for some – if not all – other cases involving football and basketball players.  Yet once again, that line of investigation was inexplicably not pursued by Martin or Baker Tilly.

* * *

            On February 7, 2013, the UNC System Board of Governors’ special panel released its own report.  It largely accepted the findings of Martin and Baker Tilly, even after the vital retraction and the updated data that had been released.  The report was met with criticism by some BOG members, and other details emerged from the findings that added more questions to an already ambiguous scandal.

            Articles were released from various local sources on February 7, including wral.com, wncn.com, and several by the News and Observer.  Multiples quotes and valuable pieces of information came forward as a result.  The special panel had been selected by the Board of Governors itself, which as previously noted had a heavy percentage of UNC graduates as members.  In fact, one portion of the report seemed to echo the sentiment that many of UNC’s leaders had been loudly stating over the previous six-plus months: that they would try and make sure nothing of the sort ever happened in the future.  “This panel acknowledges the open question about what might have occurred years ago,” the report said, “but believes that it is immaterial to its focus on current practices in both Academic Affairs and the (academic support program) that reduce the risk for any such anomalies occurring in the future.”  Essentially, they conceded that they didn’t know why the past indiscretions happened, and they weren’t overly concerned with those reasons, either.

            Some of the same types of contradictory remarks that had dotted the Martin report also showed up in the BOG panel’s report.  In the wral.com article, it stated that the panel told the rest of the board that it may never know if athletes were steered to bogus classes, but added that there was no evidence to support a conspiracy between the athletics department and the AFAM department.  Louis Bissette, the board member who led the panel, said: “We are not an investigative body.  We are a review panel.”  That would lead to the same unanswered questions that plagued the Martin report.  Why not look at past email and phone records to determine if there had been collusion between athletics and academics?  And if the BOG (and apparently Martin and his team) were not investigative bodies, then why not hire a real investigative team with experience in that realm? 

            There were other factual and data-driven inconsistencies.  Bissette was told that there were no records that could show how many freshman non-athletes were able to enroll in and complete African Studies courses designed for upper-level students.  As detailed in earlier chapters, past transcripts of UNC students would have clearly shown that distinction.  So in that regard there definitely were records that could have provided that data – though it would have been a time-consuming process to accumulate the information.  Apparently that was not the meticulous type of approach the panel wished to take, even though it would have provided accurate results.

            Board of Governors member Jim Deal called the scandal embarrassing and inexcusable.  “The chairman had a fiefdom and he was the king and nobody ever looked at what the king was doing,” said Deal.  However, he stopped short of questioning the findings of the panel’s review.  Other board members were not as forgiving, though.  Member Fred Eshelman of Wilmington expressed his incredulous doubts by saying: “This stuff was propagated for 14 years basically by two people without additional collusion?”

Burley Mitchell, a former State Supreme Court Chief Justice, was even more outspoken.  According to the wncn.com article, he blasted the consultants who provided much of the legwork for Martin’s report, saying they relied on incomplete statistical evidence and failed to interview key people involved in the scandal.  “It was inconceivable that it was two people who did this.  You have 172 fake classes.  Forty-five percent of the students in there are athletes.  That is way disproportionate for their number on campus, which was less than five percent who are athletes.  Somehow they are being directed to those courses,” Mitchell said.  “There is, to my mind, a good deal of evidence throughout this campus there were a large number of people, particularly in athletics, who knew that these courses did not amount to anything.”

            Mitchell continued by alluding to the allegations that academic counselors had steered athletes to certain courses.  “It was clearly also an athletic problem to an extreme,” he said.  In support of Mitchell’s point, an article appeared in the New York Times during the same timeframe.  In it, former UNC player Michael McAdoo alleged that he and other athletes got special treatment while at UNC.  According to the article (and a recap later published by wralsportsfan.com), McAdoo claimed that despite wanting a different major, counselors at UNC selected AFAM for him because it worked around the Tar Heels’ practice schedule.  He said that he was “assigned” a Swahili course, never attended it, and never met the professor.  That was also the class where (with the help of tutor Jennifer Wiley) he plagiarized a paper and lost his NCAA eligibility.

            A spokesperson at UNC said in reply to McAdoo’s claims, “Number one, I cannot comment on any student’s academic record.  Number two, I cannot comment on Michael’s situation because of ongoing litigation.  As far as the counselors, I would refer you to the Martin report for what counselors did or didn’t do.”  McAdoo’s disdain for the university and how they treated him was clear, though.  He was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “I would still like to get a college degree someday.  But not at the University of North Carolina.  They just wasted my time.”

            McAdoo’s assertions were yet another piece of anecdotal evidence of counselors steering athletes to fraudulent courses, and they supported the stance of Burley Mitchell and others that the reviews by Martin and the BOG special panel had not delved deep enough into the issues in question.  When asked whether the NCAA should be investigating above and beyond what the Martin report and the BOG panel had reported, Mitchell said, “Hell, yes.”  Steve Kirschner, a UNC spokesman, said after the panel’s report: “We do not comment on the specific details of our daily operations.”

* * *

            More damaging information was revealed on February 7, 2013, which dealt with what at first appeared to be a side note of the Board of Governors’ report, but eventually raised more serious questions.  The limelight was once again directed back towards some of the fraudulent courses, and the past lack of action that leaders within the school had taken in terms of identifying and potentially stopping the offering of those courses.  The News and Observer reported that according to university documents, the former director for Academic Support for Athletics had been instructed in previous years to track independent study courses to make sure there were no improprieties.  But Robert Mercer, that former director, had apparently not followed through with that task.

            The initial request of Mercer had been made by the faculty committee following an independent study scandal at Auburn University in 2006-07.  The committee had wanted to be sure that something similar was not happening at UNC.  However, officials from both the school and the overall UNC System said that they could find no evidence that Mercer had followed up.  “He was asked to provide reports, but he did not provide written reports, is all I can tell you,” said BOG member Louis Bissette.  “It’s another failure.”

            As thoroughly discussed in the previous chapter, Mercer was one of four officials with athletics ties who claimed that he raised concerns to the Faculty Athletics Committee in 2002 and 2006 about independent studies classes.  That claim was at the center of the Martin report’s findings and overall validity.  The News and Observer’s Dan Kane pointedly asked in a February 7, 2012, article:  If Mercer was concerned about those classes, why hadn’t he been tracking them as he had been asked?  Chancellor Holden Thorp said, “That should have been followed up on.  I wish it had been, because we would have caught all of this stuff.”  As was often the case with UNC employees during the ongoing scandal, Mercer could not be reached for comment.

            Thorp said he didn’t know whether Mercer’s apparent lack of action on the issue of the  independent studies casted doubt on Mercer’s assertion that he raised concerns about them, the N&O article stated.  Burley Mitchell, the Board of Governors’ member who had been so outspoken about the lack of a true investigation into the university’s issues, said the revelation made Mercer’s assertion look like a “smokescreen.”

* * *

            The university attracted negative attention from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) several days later.  According to a February 12, 2013, article in the News and Observer, SACS was an agency that monitored the academic quality of schools and colleges across the South.  Its board could issue colleges a warning, or worse, probation.  If a school on probation did not clearly address problems, it could lose accreditation.

            In a notice from the accrediting agency, UNC had been told that it must ensure the legitimacy of degrees awarded to an unknown number of graduates who took bogus classes going back to the 1990’s.  One possible solution proposed by SACS president Belle Wheelan would have been for the school to offer those graduates with free courses to take the place of the fraudulent ones.  When asked why any former student would return for an extra course, Wheelan said: “Integrity.  Honesty.  Fairness.  You know, all those things we like to think they learned as part of that academic program in the first place.”  A team assembled by the accrediting agency was scheduled to visit UNC in April.

            As an embarrassing byproduct of the warning from SACS, approximately two weeks later UNC officials confirmed that administrators were performing visual inspections of classes across campus to make sure they were taking place.  The spot checks were part of the university’s efforts to assure SACS that there would be no need for a sanction against the school in the wake of its various academic fraud scandals.

* * *

            As March got underway, there were finally some minor rumblings from UNC’s faculty with regards to the stigma the academic scandals had placed on the university.  According to a March 8, 2013, article in the News and Observer, Professor Jay Smith was again at the vocal forefront.  As a leader of a professors’ coalition known as the Athletics Reform Group, Smith had spoken at a Faculty Council meeting and called for a multi-year, wide-ranging series of town hall meetings to “debate openly and honestly” the university’s commitment to NCAA Division I athletics.  In calling for a faculty-led debate, the news article reported, Smith read an email from an unnamed colleague that ran down a series of events that began as a scandal in the football program and led to the discovery of major academic fraud. 

            At the same meeting, Chancellor Thorp had announced that an outside panel led by Association of American Universities President Hunter Rawlings would hold its first meeting on April 19.  Thorp had asked Rawlings to lead an effort to examine the balance of athletics and academics at the school.  That led to tense moments during the meeting, however, as the article stated that Thorp bristled when Jay Smith suggested the Rawlings panel was “not going to serve the function that most of us hoped.”

            Some professors at the meeting took issue with Smith’s overall proposal, suggesting that faculty had been concerned all along and the administration had launched reforms to deal with the problems uncovered.  However, the past record of printed comments seemed to speak for itself: other than Smith and Mary Willingham, virtually no other UNC faculty members had been willing to publicly decry the prominent role the school’s athletics programs had played in the ongoing scandals.  Greg Copenhaver, a biology professor, argued that Smith cast athletes in a bad light, even though the vast majority of which were “good actors.”  Almost as if scripted, Copenhaver then suggested that the faculty focus on moving forward, rather than looking back – one of the oft-repeated PR sentiments from those at UNC who seemed to want to avoid uncovering any dark athletic secrets of the past.

* * *

The essential (and unanswered) questions:

-- Through the use of nearly one million dollars from private donations, had UNC essentially paid Baker Tilly to try and absolve athletics from primary responsibility in its academic scandal?

-- Considering that athletes received an average grade of nearly an A-minus in 172 fraudulent courses, why hadn’t further research been conducted to determine the effects of those fictitious grades on those athletes’ eligibility?

-- Like Martin and his team, why had the Board of Governors also neglected to closely scrutinize the email and phone records of Julius Nyang’oro and Deborah Crowder?

-- Once the BOG conceded that they were not an “investigative body” and were unable to uncover the answers to key questions (just as Martin and his team had been unable to do), why wouldn’t they insist on the hiring of a true, skilled investigator to look into those matters?

-- What possible motive would Robert Mercer, at the time the director for Academic Support for Athletics, have for failing to track independent study courses as he had been asked to do?