OT: UNC Scandal(s)

This thing has been going on forever and will continue to go on for awhile, Latest prior to yesterday was that UNC had 90 days to respond to the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations and that their women’s basketball team would more than likely bear the brunt of the charges. It’s been a mess and has also become a symbol of the NCAA’s lack of power:

UNC AD: School will respond to NCAA charges by July deadline
http://collegefootball.ap.org/node/499026

The case, an offshoot of a 2010 NCAA probe into the football program, centers on independent study-style courses offering GPA-boosting grades in the formerly named African and Afro-American Studies department. A 2014 review by former U.S. Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein estimated more than 3,100 students were affected between 1993 and 2011, with athletes across numerous sports making up roughly half the enrollments.

The NCAA first sent an NOA outlining five potentially top-level charges in May 2015. UNC was near its response deadline in August when it reported additional information for review, pausing the process until the NCAA sent a revised NOA in April.

UNC gives the proverbial middle finger to the NCAA:

North Carolina takes issue with NCAA’s authority in NOA response

In its public response Tuesday, the school said it has taken significant steps to rectify what the NCAA has termed “academic irregularities” and agreed to varying degrees with three allegations. The NCAA’s investigation resulted in five allegations including a lack of institutional control and UNC disagrees with allegations surrounding its classes on the bounds of accreditation.

“Issues related to UNC-Chapel Hill’s academic irregularities are the proper subject of review by SACSOC, its accrediting agency — not the NCAA, its athletic association. Accordingly, though conduct related to the anomalous courses presents serious institutional issues, it should not and cannot support a lack of institutional control allegation under the NCAA constitution and bylaws absent an underlying rules violation.”


UNC skips self-imposed penalties in response to NCAA charges
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7d79f9b8e3d84365a0f323e33fa22fd1/unc-skips-self-imposed-penalties-response-ncaa-charges

UNC made several procedural arguments before responding to each charge outlined in a Notice of Allegations (NOA) sent in April. Its response is a procedural step that will eventually lead to a hearing followed by a ruling in a case likely to push into 2017.


Full Response:


https://twitter.com/JonSolomonCBS/status/760558076575354880
https://twitter.com/dennisdoddcbs/status/760558449612562432
https://twitter.com/JonSolomonCBS/status/760558671319277568
https://twitter.com/dennisdoddcbs/status/760558936671920128
https://twitter.com/JonSolomonCBS/status/760559437606117377
https://twitter.com/dennisdoddcbs/status/760559774152785920
https://twitter.com/dennisdoddcbs/status/760560025131638784
https://twitter.com/JonSolomonCBS/status/760560452271091712
https://twitter.com/dennisdoddcbs/status/760562400491806720

North Carolina wants NCAA to stay out of academic matters and it’s not alone
The NCAA’s botched handling of North Carolina’s academic investigation is validating the viewpoint of UNC and its lawyers

Whatever North Carolina is paying lawyer Rick Evrard on its NCAA case, it’s not enough. North Carolina is running circles around the NCAA that amounts to the start of a victory lap.

The NCAA has mishandled this case so thoroughly and for so long that North Carolina can argue with a straight face that the worst academic fraud case in college sports history isn’t subject to NCAA jurisdiction. If that’s true, why is the NCAA even involved in academics at all?

Did UNC’s discovery of old NCAA exchange contribute to delay in NCAA investigation?

So why did it take eight months to produce the new, amended NOA? UNC’s response, which became public on Tuesday, provides a clue – namely that the NCAA withheld a key conclusion that its Academic and Membership Affairs (AMA) director had reached in 2013 regarding the bogus classes at the heart of the investigation.

I have mentioned it before. UNC and every other powerhouse NEVER gets the "hammer"
Any other school like us or SMU gets either the death penalty or more or less the same.
The ncaa reminds me of…

1 Like

Judge dismisses NCAA from lawsuit over North Carolina’s academic fraud
Ruling notes that the NCAA cannot be held responsible for preventing players from taking fraudulent classes

The decision to remove the NCAA as a defendant comes as North Carolina is fighting charges against the association over alleged NCAA violations, including lack of institutional control. UNC has argued that the NCAA has no jurisdiction to determine the rigor of the classes. In some ways, that’s the very argument the NCAA used to dismiss itself as a defendant in the McCants lawsuit.

What will be a 4 part series from the News Observer on the scandal that basically lays it all bare. 1st part is pretty damning.

At UNC, a missed clue, and a mantra: This was not about athletics

The findings were so shocking they made network newscasts: 18 years of fake classes that had no instruction, automatic high marks for papers “graded” by Crowder, a scheme born to help maintain the eligibility of athletes in major revenue sports. Her boss, department chairman Nyang’oro, created three more bogus classes after Crowder retired in 2009.

The NCAA SHOULD have given them the death penalty a few years ago. They have not because they are an integral of the P5 cartel.
Why is it taking so long for a “Real sanction”? They are part of the cartel.
In an “ideal” World the SMU, UH and many others should take them to court.

NCAA Rejects UNC’s Stick-To-Sports Response, Moves Forward With Investigation

With all the responses now accounted for, the NCAA Committee on Infractions will hold a previously scheduled private preliminary meeting Friday—such meetings don’t normally take place during standard investigations, but given the scope of this case, it was deemed necessary. The process is now in the hands of the committee, which will determine whether the NCAA has the procedural grounds to move forward with an infractions hearing and if it can use information from the Weinstein Report.

A second amended NOA has been issued and released. It expands the timeline back to the 2002 - 2011 range and re-introduces MBB & FB into the equation. When UNC-CHeat went before the Committee On Infractions in October to argue that the NCAA didn’t have jurisdiction, blah, blah, blah. The COI was offended and said that UNC-CHeat lawyers shouldn’t have rewritten the NOA with the enforcement staff.

UNC-CHeat should have taken the weak penalty they would have gotten under the first amended version of the NOA, but their arrogance wouldn’t allow it. IF they are punished in proportion to what they have done, they are looking at a minimum of a 6 year post season ban (that’s one year for every three years of ineligible players) and 4 years with a 50% scholarship reduction. You have to consider the fact that it took 3 investigations to uncover all of this because they steered the first two away from MBB.

North Carolina’s arrogance might have backfired in NCAA academic fraud case
Third Notice of Allegations puts football and men’s basketball back in crosshairs

“I’ve said all along UNC would have been far better to do a mea culpa from the beginning and say, ‘This is horrible, but we weren’t doing anything malicious; we were just playing the college sports game to keep kids eligible and we understand these kids are getting shortchanged academically and we’ll be at the forefront of reform,’” Orr said. “But they’ve never really been able to do that.”

UNC’s third notice of allegations: questions and answers

1. What are the differences among the three NOAs?

The differences are in how each one approaches the bogus African Studies classes (“the classes,” from here on out) at the heart of the case. In the first NOA (NOA1, we’ll call it), the enforcement staff alleged UNC provided impermissible benefits in association with those classes. In the second NOA (NOA2), the reference to impermissible benefits in relation to the classes was removed, but the classes still constituted the basis for a broad allegation of lack of institutional control. In the third NOA (NOA3), the enforcement staff used the classes as the basis for alleged violations of the NCAA’s principles of ethical conduct and extra-benefit legislation. The other four allegations, including the lack of institutional control, have essentially remained the same through the different versions of the NOA.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/unc-scandal/article127285694.html

This is a nice article because it illustrates just how arrogant and uncooperative UNC-CHeat has been during this process

UNC now daring the NCAA to sanction them so that they can sue them.

The N.F.L. is playing with its fan base.
the ncaa could care less about crimes or ethics.
At some point ratings will go down then maybe we will see some changes. Again and again the ncaa is a farce they ought to be investigated by the Feds.

Sigh…

https://twitter.com/dankanenando/status/839999071746166791

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/unc-scandal/article137575478.html

His report identified 189 lecture classes that never met. Roughly 1,300 students took independent studies that had no instructor. All told, 3,100 students – half of them athletes – had enrolled in at least one class over an 18-year period.

How much did she get paid?

The ncaa and the media think we are idiots and that we will believe anything.

In the meantime unc is now in the final four…JUST LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED
The ncaa takes us for fools and the media is complicit.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/unc-scandal/article140688913.html

Meanwhile, the NCAA’s case against UNC, which includes major allegations of lack of institutional control and unethical conduct, was delayed again last week after one of the creators of the bogus classes, Deborah Crowder, an office manager for the African studies department, said in an affidavit that they were legitimate. She had not agreed to previous interview requests by the NCAA, but is now tentatively consenting to be interviewed.

The bogus classes lasted 18 years and involved more than 3,100 students, roughly half of them athletes, Wainstein’s investigation found. The scandal is often cited in the national debate about the educations athletes receive in exchange for performing on the field or court.