Nope. You are confused. UNC did not withdraw credit for the classes. That is the key. If the school had said Afrostudies 305 (made up the course title) was a fake course and everyone who took it loses the credits. If you now do not meet university graduation requirements after we recalculate your standing you will not be considered to have earned your UNC degree and must do one of x things to have it reinstated. Now they didn’t do that for a million reasons unrelated to basketball. Folks who have been out for 10-12 years and have jobs, advanced degrees and so on that all would be called into question. Determining the classes didn’t count was too much trouble. And the former students could argue that while maybe the class was a gut they figured it was legit since so many students took it, it was “taught” by the Dept Head, and was always approved. And at the end of the day that is why there was no APR issue. Because the players in question were enrolled in a class that was recognized as leading toward a degree. And the NCAA cannot and will not second guess that because it opens up a huge can of worms that the presidents cannot allow to be opened.
UNC's own investigation, the Wainstein report, in addition to UNC's accreditors, SAAC, called the classes fraudulent. UNC was put on probation because the classes were deemed fraudulent.
On that basis alone, the APR scores should have been redone. In fact, the NCAA even has a rule prohibiting fraudulent classes--but let's not go there. Let's focus on APR. If your accreditor puts you on probation and says outright, these were fraudulent classes (not to mention an internal report that came to the same conclusion), then that is enough for the NCAA to recalculate the APR.
The NCAA however was focusing on the classes as extra benefits.
It never went after the broken rule nor the APR. Just extra benefits.
Look at the Wainstain report:
"Two people within the department formerly known as African and Afro-American Studies (AFAM)—Julius Nyang’oro and Deborah Crowder—were responsible for offering hundreds of irregular classes at UNC-Chapel Hill between 1993 and 2011. These so-called “paper classes” were irregular in that they had no class attendance or faculty involvement, and Ms. Crowder, a non-faculty administrator, managed the classes and graded the papers."
Furthermore:
“Mr. Wainstein has found that the wrongdoing at Carolina lasted much longer and affected more students than previously known. The bad actions of a few and the inaction of others failed the University’s students, faculty and alumni, and undermined the institution as a whole,” said UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol L. Folt. “This conduct could and should have been stopped much earlier by individuals in positions of influence and oversight, and others could have sounded the alarm more forcefully.”
“I apologize first to the students who entrusted us with their education and took these courses. You deserved so much better from your University, and we will do everything we can to make it right,” continued Folt. “I also want to apologize to the Carolina community – you have been hurt both directly and indirectly by this wrongdoing, even though you had no knowledge or responsibility for it, and many of you were not even here when most or all of it occurred.”
This report was the basis of SAAC's probation of UNC. Wrongdoing, shame paper classes, no faculty, etc. The SAAC report calls them fraudulent.
What more do you need? UNC can say anything to defend itself, but UNC's accreditor passed judgment on those courses.
