Academic dishonesty at UNC reveals need for impressive athletics

Last week, the University of North Carolina was forced to apologize for the egregious measures it took to boost the grades of its student-athletes. After multiple probes by the NCAA, the university was found to have created “paper classes,” courses with ludicrously easy workloads and assignments (perhaps just one paper per semester). This was to ensure that student-athletes maintained the minimum 2.0 grade point average required.

Even with these low standards, work would have to be done to ensure athletic eligibility. When students were found to have plagiarized their work or to have submitted woefully incomplete assignments, the sports teams could have their assigned “academic counselors” remind the professor of the student’s need for an acceptable grade. It’s certainly not a recent development within the university; according to the NCAA’s investigation, the use of these sham classes goes as far back as 1993.

It should be noted that not all the departments at UNC were involved in this scandal. When needing easy courses to maintain eligibility, the athletes would almost always be sent to the African American Studies Department, which oversaw most of these paper classes. According to The New York Times, over 3,100 students (about half of whom were student-athletes) got credit for these classes, for which most of the work was graded by the administrator for the African American Studies Department, who is not a professor). It remains to be seen how far up the hierarchy this practice was made known. While it appears clear that many, if not most, of UNC’s coaches were aware of this opportunity, the investigation has not yet directly implicated the university president or other similarly ranking officials in these offenses.

Some have made the claim that this controversy further illustrates how naïve the term “student-athlete” really is, especially when it comes to traditional athletic powerhouses like UNC. Certainly there is no defense for permitting such a mockery of a higher education, but there does remain the question of how, or even if, these schools can help their athletes walk the academics-athletics tightrope. Given the huge financial incentive that exists to keep student-athletes eligible, it’s hard to imagine a world in which many schools don't look the other way every so often.

Of course, that the NCAA is the organization to drop the hammer on UNC is more than a little ironic. Both entities can absolutely be vilified for taking advantage of students under their jurisdiction —UNC for failing to provide a real education for these students and the NCAA for raking in billions of dollars while continuing to deny players any share of these profits. To those who say that players will receive more than enough benefits in a post-college career, know that less than 2 percent of collegiate football and basketball players go pro. Big-time college athletics, though highly entertaining, definitely appears to be an exploitative system.

Exploitation is the heart of the matter. The statement that captures the matter the best comes from UNC Athletic Director Lawrence “Bubba” Cunningham: “We need to provide a great education … We’ve lost that trust, and we have to build back that trust.”

The core mission of every university is to provide its students with a quality education to prepare them for the road ahead. However, we have seen universities across America at times lose sight of this vision, especially when the identity of the school is so wrapped up in the success of certain athletic programs. Strong athletic performances in big-time sports are all that keep some schools in the public eye. It’s easy to see why institutions would go to such great lengths to perpetuate that success.

None of that, of course, excuses UNC’s actions or the actions of any school that fudges grades for its students with the aim of getting better performance on the field or court. It’s just important to realize that a lot is at stake if the sports teams aren’t succeeding: money, the identity of a school and to some extent, the identity of the local community. These aren’t problems the athletics department around here may necessarily face, but we must pause before we so quickly judge the mistakes UNC made.