I am not a fan of Notre Dame, but I am disturbed by the ruling, especially in light of another recent ruling. What I am seeing is that if a mistake, such as academic dishonesty occurs, and an institution does its best to rectify it, they are penalized. But an institution that does its best to be duplicitous following a 20 year period of fraud, make no effort to correct or atleast be honest about the wrongs, and then also lie to the NCAA and accrediatation agencies, is not subject to sanctions.
While I fault the investigative committees for the arbitrary decisions in these two cases, it is up to the member institutions to change things. They have the power to do so.