UNC Disaster Rolls On

With no games Thursday or Friday, ACC attention naturally turns to Chapel Hill, where the scandal continues to unfold in excruciating detail.

As we've said for some time now, UNC would have been 100 times smarter simply to lance the boil and get it over with.

Instead, the university continues to try to somehow weasel out of it, to minimize it, to somehow get away from it.

And it just makes it worse.

So the latest developments:

After Michael McAdoo aimed a shot directly at the academic support staff on Wednesday, and after Mary Willingham pledged to support the Ed O' Bannon case, the university's institutional review board decided that she "had released data that could potentially identify research subjects," according to the News & Observer.

Willingham's research found that half of the athletes surveyed were reading at an eighth grade level and that a tenth of those athletes were essentially illiterate.

In a second front against Willingham's accusations, UNC suspended her research privileges and issued this statement:

Last week, CNN reported on reading skills of student-athletes at U.S. public universities including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The story used a CNN-defined threshold for student-athletes being "college-literate" based on results from SAT and ACT college entrance exam scores (400 on SAT Critical Reading or Writing; 16 on ACT). The network said it consulted with experts in different fields to develop the threshold.

CNN did not ask the University for SAT or ACT data, instead relying on observations provided by a UNC employee who did not represent the campus in its report.

An analysis conducted by the University’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions found that all 154 special-talent student-athletes – 100 percent – who enrolled in fall 2013 met CNN’s reading skills threshold. That first-year class included 35 student-athletes recruited for football and men’s and women’s basketball. (CNN did not examine 2013 information.)

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions used CNN’s definition to analyze UNC’s own SAT and ACT data for special-talent student-athletes enrolled as first-year students through policies and procedures established by the UNC Board of Trustees, faculty and the admissions office.

That analysis found:

• Between 2004 and 2012, the same time period examined by CNN, UNC-Chapel Hill enrolled 1,377 first-year student-athletes through the special-talent policies and procedures. More than 97 percent (1,338) of those students met the CNN threshold. Thirty-nine students (2.83 percent) did not meet the threshold.
  • Twenty-three of the 39 students (59 percent) who did not meet the CNN threshold have graduated from the University or remain enrolled and in good academic standing. Another 11 students (28 percent) left the University academically eligible to return. The other five students left the University and would have to restore their academic eligibility in order to return.
  • In summary, 34 of the 39 students (87 percent) who did not meet the CNN threshold either graduated from the University, remain enrolled and in good academic standing, or left the University academically eligible to return
• Of the student-athletes who enrolled between 2004 and 2012 under the special-talent policies, 341 were recruited for football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball. More than 90 percent (307) of these students met the CNN threshold. Thirty-four of these student-athletes (9.97 percent) did not meet the threshold.
  • Of the 34 students recruited for football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball who did not meet the threshold, 20 students (59 percent) either have graduated from the University or remain enrolled and in good academic standing. Another 10 students (29 percent) left the University academically eligible to return. The other four students left the University and would have to restore their academic eligibility in order to return.
  • In summary, 30 of these 34 students (88 percent) either graduated from the University, remain enrolled and in good academic standing, or left the University academically eligible to return.

"We evaluate every student as carefully as we know how," said Stephen Farmer, vice provost for enrollment and undergraduate admissions. "The primary criterion for admission for all students, including student-athletes, is the student’s capacity to succeed academically at the University. We only admit students who we believe have the capacity to succeed."

In keeping with University Board of Trustees policy, and guidance from the Faculty Advisory Committee on Undergraduate Admissions, Farmer said the Office of Undergraduate Admissions evaluates every candidate individually, comprehensively and holistically. These evaluations rely on quantitative and qualitative data and information. The quantitative measures include results from standardized tests (SAT or ACT with Writing).

"We pay careful attention to test results," Farmer said. "But we do not make final admissions decisions based on test scores alone – not for any student, and not for any student-athlete."

Chancellor Carol Folt issued a concurrent statement which in part reads:

"Even as we continue this work, Carolina is facing a surge of new stories in the national and local media about the academic preparation of our student-athletes. This interest was sparked in part by highly publicized claims about student literacy, and continues in the media almost daily. I take these claims very seriously, but we have been unable to reconcile these claims with either our own facts or with those data currently being cited as the source for the claims. Moreover, the data presented in the media does not match up with those data gathered by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. For example, only two of the 321 student-athletes admitted in 2012 and 2013 fell below the SAT and ACT levels that were cited in a recent CNN report as the threshold for reading levels for first-year students. And those two students are in good academic standing. Nevertheless, we are investigating all the claims being made and, if they are found to have merit, I will take all appropriate actions. We also will do our best to correct assertions we believe are not based in fact.

"This issue is part of a larger national conversation about the role and impact of college sports and even further about the commitment schools make to ensure their students receive the support they need to succeed in the classroom as well as on the playing field. I assure you that I will not accept anything less than the excellence we expect Carolina to represent for our students and the community.

"I am asking for your patience and understanding today. I still have many questions, and I am seeking to understand the complete picture of what additional work we need to do in this area. We have learned many lessons in the past few years, and I am actively building on those lessons to continue to improve our community. It is our responsibility to address these issues, the people involved, and the media attention being generated by them, very thoughtfully and thoroughly. Our goals are to be proactive in our analysis and solutions, to protect the privacy rights of individual students, and to apply the rigorous standards of assessment expected here at Carolina. Whether we agree or disagree, we must welcome healthy debate, respect each other and in that way show the true character of our Carolina community."

A lot of this is essentially just CYA material and some of it is very cleverly crafted. For instance, Folt refers to the classes of 2012 and 2013 as being academically sound.

Well of course they are: UNC is under an intense microscope. No one can afford a Michael McAdoo now or an illiterate as Willingham charges.

And in the first statement, UNC argues that of the substandard students, as defined by CNN, 59% have graduated.

• Twenty-three of the 39 students (59 percent) who did not meet the CNN threshold have graduated from the University or remain enrolled and in good academic standing. Another 11 students (28 percent) left the University academically eligible to return. The other five students left the University and would have to restore their academic eligibility in order to return.
• In summary, 34 of the 39 students (87 percent) who did not meet the CNN threshold either graduated from the University, remain enrolled and in good academic standing, or left the University academically eligible to return

What is not (and legally cannot) be discussed here is a simple but critical obfuscation: how many of those who graduated before 2010, when the scandal began to break, took the fake classes? Does this number include, for instance, Sean May?

May, you might remember, talked publicly about the convenience of independent study classes in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies.

How can anyone not wonder if he took the fraudulent classes? What about David Noel, who like May, majored in African and Afro-American Studies? What about Julius Peppers, whose transcript was accidentally published, and whose GPA may have been pumped up by fraudulent classes?  What about Tyler Hansbrough's Swahili?

The university might be entirely right to have suspended Willingham. Nonetheless, it's a radioactive PR disaster that will take years to live down.

Again, UNC would be better served to appoint someone who has no ties to the university to thoroughly and relentlessly dig through everything and just put it all out there. At this rate, it could go on indefinitely.