Forde on UNC Academic (Athletic?) Scandal

Yahoo! is following up the N&O reports.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--fbc-north-carolina-academic-scandal....

All told, there have been 54 Afro-American Studies classes labeled "suspect" by the school's internal investigation. More than half of the students in those classes were athletes. The N&O reported that all but nine of the classes had Nyang'oro listed as the instructor or the signer of the grade rolls.
For a school that holds itself in high academic regard, this is as tawdry as it gets.

"It's demoralizing," said professor of social medicine Sue Estroff, a former UNC faculty chair and 30-year teaching veteran at the school. "It's dumbfounding. It's embarrassing. It's maddening. What else can I say? It's not what anybody wanted. It belongs to all of us, and you can't put it in just one place. It's impossible to defend, nor should we try."

History professor Jay Smith was part of a large group of academicians that issued a statement in February on UNC athletic principles, urging openness, responsibility and mission consistency. Since then, he has seen the situation get exponentially worse.

"Of course it's academic fraud," Smith wrote in an email. "And it's a form of fraud that was designed (by whom we can't say yet) to keep athletes eligible, making plausible 'progress toward the degree.' I don't blame the athletes – and that's important to make clear. Many of us feel this way. It's not the athletes' fault that they're often being shepherded through a bogus course of study, and are also made to pay the piper if they fall short of some measure invented by the NCAA.
"It's the system that's corrupt, and it's the adults who benefit from the system – starting with school administrators and faculty – who have to have the gumption to live up to their moral obligations and say enough is enough."

Gumption has seemed to be in short administrative supply during this scandal.

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