CHAPEL HILL, N.C. ― More than 3,100 students—nearly half of them athletes—enrolled in classes they didn’t have to show up for and received artificially inflated grades in what an investigator called a “shadow curriculum” that lasted nearly two decades at the University of North Carolina.
The report released Wednesday by former high-ranking U.S. Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein found more far-reaching academic fraud than previous investigations by the school and the NCAA.
Many at the university hoped Wainstein’s investigation would bring some closure to the long-running scandal, which is rooted in an NCAA investigation focused on improper benefits within the football program in 2010. Instead, findings of a systemic problem in the former African and Afro-American Studies department could lead to NCAA sanctions and possible dismissal of additional UNC staff.
“I think it’s very clear that this is an academic, an athletic and a university problem,” chancellor Carol Folt said.
The report outlined courses in the former African and Afro-American Studies department that required only a research paper that was often scanned quickly and given an A or B regardless of the quality of work.
The school’s board of trustees and the panel that oversees the state’s university system reviewed Wainstein’s findings during a closed-door meeting earlier Wednesday. A half-dozen officials and UNC Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham declined to say whether anyone would lose their job.
