UNC buckles... Hires outside investigator to probe academic fraud scandal

[David 76]

No one said anything different than what you just wrote. All I am talking about is where for PA educators a teacher reports (the administrator) who then files the report with youth and Family and Police. In the case to PSU those are exactly who Tim Curley and Gary Schultz are the administrator and the person responsible for the university police who are a full police force.

I get that. Not arguing. But it is crazy law. Why would it be any different than other laws? If you witness a murder, I assume you don't go through university hierarchy, you just call police. Same with rape. But a reported rape of a minor is different? Mind boggling.

 

[Icebear]

I get that. Not arguing. But it is crazy law. Why would it be any different than other laws? If you witness a murder, I assume you don't go through university hierarchy, you just call police. Same with rape. But a reported rape of a minor is different? Mind boggling.

As I said the explanation given to me was that there had been past problems of prosecution. My suspicion is the process is to isolate the primary reporter (the teacher) from any supposed possibility of back flow of information from investigations by further inquiries.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Did you miss the part of obstruction and liability to prosecution. There is a reason for that law. Well intended people have made cases impossible to prosecute.

Also, JoePA did follow up with Curley and was told it was being followed up. He reported the same back to McQuerry. McQuerry is on record as such. Joe had no power to investigate. The buck stops with Curley and Schultz. Top of the pyramid in the the AD and the university security department. They failed everyone: the abused, their families, the student body, the alumni, and the university.

All the details about the Sandusky case have been argued over very eloquently and sometimes too heatedly on many sites, and rehashing them all here is maybe not the best use of time. The Paterno backers will say he knew nothing of all the early investigations about Sandusky and that the defensive coordinator's very early retirement was just coincidental, and others will say that Paterno knew about absolutely everything that happened at PSU and that the schedule interruptions for Paterno in the late 1990s point to involvement in the school's handling of a ghastly situation. But yeah, until the smoking gun is found, the Paterno apologists will proclaim that the man who knew everything happening at his school knew "nothing, nothing," as current governor's are insisting about their own scandals.

Last thing I'll say is, you have your firm views about the conduct of a central PSU powerbroker and sem-godlike figure, and I have decidedly different ones. Faculty members who were privy to the details of a number of cases in the Sandusky category in my local area in the 2000s worked with law officials here to bring about quick enforcement and prosecutions. They would not have considered it an option to walk away from the case and forget it. Years ago that might have been true, but not nowadays.

You are satisfied that Paterno did his job and got assurances that the case was being "followed up." And of course he is shielded by the law from having to have any curiosity about the case or asking McQueary about whether the campus police bothered to talk with him. And nine years went by from 2002 until near the end of 2011 while Sandusky ran his "charity" for boys, and Joe Paterno knew that he had done his job and need think about it no further or what his former associate was doing at Second Mile. Out of mind, out of conscience.

That's a different world from the one I live in, though I have met some former PSU professors who spent some years dealing with unrelated ethics cases during the Sandusky era and say that the "report it and then just shut up" code of conduct is well entrenched at the school. They could neither fight the system nor take the moral consequences of having to live with it, and they left.

But maybe "the letter of the law" is all it comes down to nowadays. Sad.

 

[UcMiami]

Dobbs - again - There are two things here - the NCAA is charged with rules and enforcement for athletic programs that involve the recruiting, eligibility and compensation of student athletes.
What Sandusky did was a horrendous crime. And the actions/inactions of some people in authority at PSU and in the community at large that allowed him to continue his criminal behavior was also both criminal and/or egregious. But ... it did not effect the standards that the NCAA was set up to oversee or enforce. It was a huge stretch for them to get involved and as I said elsewhere if Sandusky's crime was say a mini-Madoff type 'white collar' crime they wouldn't have done anything. This does not mean that I absolve PSU of responsibility nor that I minimize the crimes committed.
What was done at UNC may or may not be illegal, it was certainly unethical, and may in some cases rise to fraud. But it was done specifically to get around NCAA rules for the eligibility of athletes to participate in their sport and as such is exactly what the NCAA is supposed to be enforcing.
The two situations are very different - PSU criminal and horrendous and a matter for criminal courts, UNC slimy and dishonest and likely to land in civil courts. PSU outside the purview of NCAA enforcement, UNC dead center of their enforcement regime.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Well sure, the PSU case was outside of the bounds that the NCAA usually works with, and usually the school would have dealt with it on its own. If either the PSU admins had done their job in the first place or if it had not been until 2011 that the evidence of Sandusky's crime had come to light and then been acted on swiftly, likely the NCAA would not have been involved and no sanctions against the team would have been leveled. It was simply the malfeasance of the school's admins that brought the NCAA into the case and the punitive steps taken.

The UNC case does appear to revolve around wide-scale improprieties commonly known as cheating that were carried out mainly for athletes and to gain an edge on the playing field, and that does squarely involve the NCAA. The muddling factor of some of the students not necessarily being athletes does not really seem a big issue to me as I thought that the term "student athlete" involved overlapping attributes (both an athlete and a student), and not something that can be separated, though I know some will argue that some of the UNC players were mainly just athletes and not really students. Is a team manager an athlete, and if not, would there presence in the classroom with athletes mean that the NCAA did not need to be concerned with course irregularities if the NCAA's only concern is about athletes. Ultimately, all students at a school through their student fees are involved with the sports on a campus and in some way connected to the NCAA. So it seems silly for either UNC or NCAA to argue that this scandal lies outside the domain of the athletics department if a few of the students in the case were not on a team.

 

[David 76]

And if PSU avoided the issue to maintain athletic recruiting (and donation drives), is it then an NCAA issue? I think this spoke volumes re big time college athletics and the NCAA should have taken their focus off how some 14 year old's sneakers were paid for opened their mouths about PSU.
I understand the technical points but some situations call for leadership. Instead of leadership, the University, as a whole, enabled. And the NCAA decided the situation had nothing to do with the integrity of collegiate sports.

 

[Icebear]

And if PSU avoided the issue to maintain athletic recruiting (and donation drives), is it then an NCAA issue? I think this spoke volumes re big time college athletics and the NCAA should have taken their focus off how some 14 year old's sneakers were paid for opened their mouths about PSU.
I understand the technical points but some situations call for leadership. Instead of leadership, the University, as a whole, enabled. And the NCAA decided the situation had nothing to do with the integrity of collegiate sports.

No none of that is in evidence yet. There are exactly two people central to the events that violated their responsibilities. Even the issues surrounding Spanier are extremely vague. The Freeh report was revealed for the joke it is. Lot's of inferences an next to no evidence. The NCAA should have waited for the trials to be held. As it is now if Curley and/or Schultz come clean and are the sole persons responsible then the NCAA has taken action on wrong information. Remember that everything the university supposedly "should have known" was equally unknown to people who worked with Sandusky longer and closer than the university at Second Mile. They too were completely blindsided. Sandusky had even been investigated by police professionals in the past and cleared the required clearances for working with youth.

The person I hold most responsible is the deceased DA who failed to prosecute in The 90s.

 

[HoopsFan21]

And if PSU avoided the issue to maintain athletic recruiting (and donation drives), is it then an NCAA issue? I think this spoke volumes re big time college athletics and the NCAA should have taken their focus off how some 14 year old's sneakers were paid for opened their mouths about PSU.
I understand the technical points but some situations call for leadership. Instead of leadership, the University, as a whole, enabled. And the NCAA decided the situation had nothing to do with the integrity of collegiate sports.

Two points:
1. The NCAA doesn't regulate donation drives, whatever those are. We're not talking about Goodwill or Salvation Army here.
2. The University as a whole enabled Sandusky? So all 42,000+ students and 15,000+ employees all knew about and enabled Sandusky? Pretty amazing that you could get tens of thousands of people to keep such a secret for five minutes let alone over a decade. Either that or you're exaggerating or lying, but I guess parroting ESPN sound bites makes you righteous? Wonder how many kids are being abused right under your nose that you aren't doing a darn thing about. See how easy it is?

 

[msf22b]

Some thoughts
1. This thread was supposed to be about NC State; Penn State is a completely extranious matter which we have discussed previously in some detail.

2. I don't believe (without evidence) that Joe Paterno was involved in any way in covering this matter up; period.

Just my opinion;
Subject to being modified when (and if) someone produces evidence to the contrary.

 

[calpedaler]

Some thoughts
1. This thread was supposed to be about NC State; Penn State is a completely extranious matter which we have discussed previously in some detail.

Are you sure about that?

 

[David 76]

Do you think the NCAA waited for all evidence to be in when they went after UCONN? After Boatright? No. It was clear they were they were looking into it. Long before a decision was made.

Hoops fan, you could not be more wrong.
1)You don't think colleges go after donations? You don't think they have drives to do this? How much of an endowment does PSU have?
2)The "University, as a whole" does not mean every student and employee. I was referring to the entity.
3)I deal with kids abused "under my nose" on a regular basis in my work. I've been a foster parent to 2 abused kids and adopted a third.
4)Oh, And I don't watch ESPN unless we are playing on it so that missed the mark
Finally, I respect where Bear is coming from, though I disagree with some of his conclusions. I think he is interested in the welfare of kids.
But I would ask other people to wear the shoes of the victim(s) or their parents. Kids traumatized in a manner that will affect them their entire life, by a trusted adult. Look at the situation from that perspective and see if you wouldn't be upset someone didn't do a little bit more at PSU.

 

[CL82]

I just think there is a tendency to oversimplify.

When I was in school I had a professor who was well known that he didn't tend to fail anyone. Now, he was an excellent instructor, and he certainly didn't give everyone an "A" , but I knew classmates that didn't get the material and none failed (this was when grades were still posted on walls).

Again, the next year, I took a class that was a bit over my head. I did my best, but got an "A" not so much for my coursework but for my honesty in the "exit" interview, where I acknowledged that I just didn't have the mathematical background (I was a chem major) to quite "get" some of the material (the course was described as best for math majors, I thought it sounded interesting and took it).

Were these professors committing "fraud"? because they graded maybe a bit high? Was the rather loony Organic Chem professor that didn't give "A" grades because he didn't think any student was really good enough to deserve one a fraud?

My point is, and I have no idea, did the fraud at UNC extend to every student in a class, or only selected students. Or was the class a complete fake - in which case, I agree, the students need to be disciplined, all of them.

I personally believe there were numerous folks in the UNC administration who knew what was going on and I believe they all should be terminated and, where applicable, charged. As I believed with Penn State where there were fewer folks involved.

I also have no issue, incidentally, with athletic sanctions, although, we know that isn't happening. What I do have is a problem with someone saying that, if the situation is cleaned up as it (hopefully) will be, the school as an entity needs anything more than academic probation.

Well that and having their APR retroactively recalculated and have them forfeit any post season game since they played with ineligible players. Oh and a five year post season ban seems about right as well.

 

[HoopsFan21]

Hopefully the NCAA doesn't sanction UConn basketball for that professor that did who knows what to those young women, as now it has come out that people knew as far back as 2006 and did nothing. Sure sounds like covering up potential crimes to me. Local news here in Connecticut has been all over the story. Stories like this hit home. It's why I refuse to judge what happened at PSU knowing that an outsider looking in could easily spin the story into something very negative and damaging for UConn.

 

[hjoerring]

I'll second that!

I think this is a lot more widespread than we think- not just at UNC, but the majority of D1 Programs. Deans are kept in the dark, but chairpersons in a variety of departments and don-granting degree programs look the other way as borderline classes are offer every semester solely to bring in students. Students equal TA-ships for grads and serves to legitimate some programs as relevant. One needs not speak of conspiracy: just identifying a need and satisfying it. It is the same reason why a chairman of dept A may stop prof A in the hall way about all the Fs + Cs s/he is giving out-- the battle ground is about bringing students in- not pushing them away. Deans appropriate monies to dept and programs base on 'service', etc. Some programs that do not grant degrees are seen as service programs/dept. Therein lies the slippy line between legit and illlegit practices. The bigger the school and Athl. program the more areas to hide these things.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

If either the PSU admins had done their job in the first place or if it had not been until 2011 that the evidence of Sandusky's crime had come to light and then been acted on swiftly, likely the NCAA would not have been involved and no sanctions against the team would have been leveled. It was simply the malfeasance of the school's admins that brought the NCAA into the case and the punitive steps taken.

The UNC case does appear to revolve around wide-scale improprieties commonly known as cheating that were carried out mainly for athletes and to gain an edge on the playing field, and that does squarely involve the NCAA.

And yet, for several years, there were WCBB fans who seemed to think a potential Wendy's lunch (maybe they had lunch via Skype from Russia) and a tour of ESPN were ruining intercollegiate athletics and were the downfall of honesty and intergrity in recruiting...

*insert low-flying sarcasm plane here*

 

[loneycafe]

Another story out about UNC, this one makes the cover of Businessweek: No Class: In fake classes scandal, UNC fails its athletes--and whistle-blower

 

[watanabe]

Trying to stay on subject (I can't think about PSU, it makes me see red, real bad)

The UNC case does appear to revolve around wide-scale improprieties commonly known as cheating that were carried out mainly for athletes and to gain an edge on the playing field, and that does squarely involve the NCAA. The muddling factor of some of the students not necessarily being athletes does not really seem a big issue to me as I thought that the term "student athlete" involved overlapping attributes (both an athlete and a student), and not something that can be separated, though I know some will argue that some of the UNC players were mainly just athletes and not really students. Is a team manager an athlete, and if not, would there presence in the classroom with athletes mean that the NCAA did not need to be concerned with course irregularities if the NCAA's only concern is about athletes. Ultimately, all students at a school through their student fees are involved with the sports on a campus and in some way connected to the NCAA. So it seems silly for either UNC or NCAA to argue that this scandal lies outside the domain of the athletics department if a few of the students in the case were not on a team.

This is outrageous that NCAA is hiding behind what Mr. DobbsR is saying. I've heard that the NCAA is taking a hands off attitude because of it. WTF?

 

[DobbsRover2]

Trying to stay on subject (I can't think about PSU, it makes me see red, real bad)



This is outrageous that NCAA is hiding behind what Mr. DobbsR is saying. I've heard that the NCAA is taking a hands off attitude because of it. WTF?

The essence of it all since the scandal broke out a few years back is this: Emmert and the NCAA have refused to get involved in the UNC scandal even though the school recently admitted much of the extent of the cheating.

Even though the NCAA has been happy to step into much more minute cases of this type of academics related malfeasance, on UNC they have refused to act until it is proved that the classes involved were specifically set up to keep athletes eligible. Not only is that likely a difficult or impossible point to prove, as there were likely some non-athletes in the classes and that the classes may have set up in the beginning as legitimate classes and then evolved into no-show-no-do classes. So the NCAA has set the bar for action impossibly high, but they have completely shoved aside the question of whether hundreds of athletes earned large amounts of fraudulent credits and whether that means that the integrity of athletics programs were compromised.

And for the posters who want to distract attention to the real or imagined fraud at other schools, that really has no bearing on whether action should be taken at UNC. It is certainly very possible that there are athletics related sham courses at other schools, and if clear evidence is brought to light then action should be taken there to, whether it be at UConn, Auburn, Mississippi, etc. etc.

 

[David 76]

..

And for the posters who want to distract attention to the real or imagined fraud at other schools, that really has no bearing on whether action should be taken at UNC. It is certainly very possible that there are athletics related sham courses at other schools, and if clear evidence is brought to light then action should be taken there to, whether it be at UConn, Auburn, Mississippi, etc. etc.

I never get this logic either. All people who drive drunk, don't get caught so we shouldn't arrest the ones we catch?

 

[watanabe]

I never get this logic either. All people who drive drunk, don't get caught so we shouldn't arrest the ones we catch?

It's no longer a crime in the US if you don't get caught. Also if caught, deny, deny deny. then try affluenza, or, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Come on, that's what we teach our children today on the stage of national tv. You're old school. Keep up old timer.

 

[David 76]

It really is an argument common among 14 year olds. After 16 years of age it really is developmentally inappropriate.