UNC Athletics Scandal: UNC releases response to NOA-3

[Tom B.]

So, about that "classes were open and available to all students" defense...

Crowder says the classes weren't published. Students could only sign up if they learned about them by word of mouth or from an advisor.

(Hat tip to Ted Tatos.)

https://twitter.com/TedTatos/status/868830149910740992


hmm.jpg

[swood1000]

So, about that "classes were open and available to all students" defense...

Crowder says the classes weren't published. Students could only sign up if they learned about them by word of mouth or from an advisor.

(Hat tip to Ted Tatos.)

https://twitter.com/TedTatos/status/868830149910740992

I assume she means that all classes being offered were listed but it wasn't disclosed which ones had the special 'paper class' characteristics. For example, there would always be a listing for Independent Study, but only the insiders would know that a special kind of Independent Study was available.

However that’s the same as not being listed since knowing and taking advantage of their true nature required inside information not publically available. Simply listing an independent study without any way for non-athletes to know that it is available as a paper class, rather than as a legitimate independent study, does not make it generally available. It is similar to the 2015 Wichita State case where extra benefits were found when discounts were available to all but only the athletes were told about them.

It is true that academic counselors for non-athletes (“Steele Building counselors”) also put students into paper classes. However, while that made the classes available to those students it did not make them “generally available” if they were not accurately described in the course listings.

The 1995 U. of Miami case dealt with 77 athletes and 6 non-athletes and held that the assistance was not “generally available” because it was not provided to non-athletes on the same scale. In the current case, according to Wainstein, “In percentage terms, that means that 47.6% of the paper class enrollments were student-athletes and 24.5% were football or basketball players. By comparison, approximately 4% of the Chapel Hill student body are student-athletes in any given year, and approximately 0.6% are football players.” This shows that the paper classes were not available to non-athletes on the same scale.

However, for wins to be vacated the enforcement staff is going to have to do more than show statistically that student-athletes in general were steered to these classes. In order to vacate a game in which athlete A played, they are going to need to show that athlete A didn’t just arrive in class X by chance, but because he was steered by the athletic advisors or by another athlete who was steered by an athletic advisor.

[Indoor66]

However, for wins to be vacated the enforcement staff is going to have to do more than show statistically that student-athletes in general were steered to these classes. In order to vacate a game in which athlete A played, they are going to need to show that athlete A didn’t just arrive in class X by chance, but because he was steered by the athletic advisors or by another athlete who was steered by an athletic advisor.

Would they not also reach the vacate situation if the situation was that but for the class x, the athlete would have been academically ineligible?

[swood1000]

Would they not also reach the vacate situation if the situation was that but for the class x, the athlete would have been academically ineligible?

As I understand their approach insofar as vacated wins are concerned, the enforcement staff is going with the activities of the athletic counselors as extra benefits, which render the athlete immediately ineligible until he is formally reinstated.

16.01.1 Eligibility Effect of Violation. [A] A student-athlete shall not receive any extra benefit. Receipt by a student-athlete of an award, benefit or expense allowance not authorized by NCAA legislation renders the student-athlete ineligible for athletics competition in the sport for which the improper award, benefit or expense was received.

I don’t see anything in Allegation 1 or anywhere else in NOA-3 charging that any athletes would have been academically ineligible without these classes. Of course that doesn’t prevent the COI from determining that that is what happened.

19.7.7.4 Scope of Inquiry. When an institution and/or involved individual appears before a hearing panel to discuss a response to the notice of allegations, the hearing shall be directed toward the general scope of the notice of allegations but shall not preclude the panel from concluding that any violation occurred based on information developed or discussed during the hearing. In any case, the panel may make specific factual findings based on information presented by the parties or at a hearing even if different from the notice of allegations.

But the enforcement staff will not be presenting evidence toward that goal and I don’t expect it to come into play. Essentially they are not arguing that the classes should not be good for academic credit, but that they were easier and the athletes got preferential access to them.

[swood1000]

Some of the difficulty people are having with this has to do with distinguishing between (a) these paper classes, (b) more conventional forms of academic fraud such as where the students are given the answer key before the exam, and (c) classes taught by a legitimate instructor but which have minimal requirements and everyone gets an A.

UNC is arguing that these classes were a species of type (c) and that the NCAA has no authority to determine whether the academic content of a class has fallen too low. The enforcement staff would like to argue that the classes were of type (b) but to do so they would have to demonstrate that the academic content was zero and the testimony of Crowder is that the academic content was significant. To prove otherwise they need to see the actual papers and most of those are gone. This also would involve them in the business of evaluating academic content.

So it seems like the enforcement staff is going with this as a type (c) class but to which the athletes were given greater access. Instead of showing that the academic content was wanting (which perhaps they are not qualified to do) they are substituting all the information they have about how irregular the classes were. For example UNC did acknowledge (forced upon them by SACS, their accrediting body) that for those not yet graduated these classes could not be used toward the minimum requirements necessary to graduate unless the student presented some proof that the particular class was legitimate. Then there are additional facts, such as that the classes were not taught by a qualified faculty member, the admitted fact that they were designed to help athletes and others to keep their grades up, etc. It does not seem to be a stretch to say that this would be a legitimate substitute for a proof that the academic content was weak (which probably would be outside the NCAA’s expertise and legitimate scope).

UNC will still scream that any determination, no matter what the method, that a particular class was of diminished academic rigor, is outside the scope of the NCAA’s authority. But maybe we’ll end up with the Carolina Rule: it does not have to be proven that a class is substandard if the institution has admitted the fact (even if at the urging of their accrediting body). That in itself would not be an NCAA violation. It would also have to be shown that athletes were given preferential access.

[UrinalCake]

So, about that "classes were open and available to all students" defense...

Crowder says the classes weren't published. Students could only sign up if they learned about them by word of mouth or from an advisor.

(Hat tip to Ted Tatos.)

Later in that conversation Crowder is discussing how she wanted to help students, so whenever they needed help to graduate she would enroll them in the fake classes. She goes to great length to point that she did the same for athletes and non-athletes alike - it could be an athlete that has time constraints due to practice, or it could be a single mom who doesn't have childcare in the afternoons. However, when questioned about whether she ever verified whether the claims of needing help are actually true, she says that when the requests came from the athletic advisors she didn't check if the claims were true, she simply believed the advisors.

I read most of the transcript of Crowder's interview. It seems to me that she was prepped heavily for this interview by UNC's lawyers by being told to point out ad nauseum that whatever she did for athletes, she did for non-athletes as well. Early in the interview she brings this up without even being asked, and she says it all the time. However, as the interview wears on she appears to lose focus and lets slip some of the special treatment that athletes got. She says that i tused to be that in order to enroll in some of these "special" classes you used to have to stand in a physical line in her office. When asked whether she ever knew if the students requesting enrollment were athletes, she states that officially she was never told but admitted that realistically she could tell who the football and basketball players were by their physical appearance. She describes requests coming in from advisors and claims to make no distinction between requests from athletics advisors versus regular academic advisors. However she also says that there were so many requests from athletics advisors and the students couldn't physically fit in her office, so she eventually she had the athletics department email her a list of all the students to add rather than having them show up in person. She also explains that even if there was a wait list for the class, once the semester started any requests coming from the advisors would automatically jump the wait list and those students would be immediately added to the class.

Despite her painstaking attempts to paint this narrative that she had no clue what was going on because she treated everyone the same, you can read between the lines and see how the athletics advising department was running this scam.

[PackMan97]

Some of the difficulty people are having with this has to do with distinguishing between (a) these paper classes, (b) more conventional forms of academic fraud such as where the students are given the answer key before the exam, and (c) classes taught by a legitimate instructor but which have minimal requirements and everyone gets an A.

UNC is arguing that these classes were a species of type (c) and that the NCAA has no authority to determine whether the academic content of a class has fallen too low. The enforcement staff would like to argue that the classes were of type (b) but to do so they would have to demonstrate that the academic content was zero and the testimony of Crowder is that the academic content was significant. To prove otherwise they need to see the actual papers and most of those are gone. This also would involve them in the business of evaluating academic content.

So it seems like the enforcement staff is going with this as a type (c) class but to which the athletes were given greater access. Instead of showing that the academic content was wanting (which perhaps they are not qualified to do) they are substituting all the information they have about how irregular the classes were. For example UNC did acknowledge (forced upon them by SACS, their accrediting body) that for those not yet graduated these classes could not be used toward the minimum requirements necessary to graduate unless the student presented some proof that the particular class was legitimate. Then there are additional facts, such as that the classes were not taught by a qualified faculty member, the admitted fact that they were designed to help athletes and others to keep their grades up, etc. It does not seem to be a stretch to say that this would be a legitimate substitute for a proof that the academic content was weak (which probably would be outside the NCAA’s expertise and legitimate scope).

UNC will still scream that any determination, no matter what the method, that a particular class was of diminished academic rigor, is outside the scope of the NCAA’s authority. But maybe we’ll end up with the Carolina Rule: it does not have to be proven that a class is substandard if the institution has admitted the fact (even if at the urging of their accrediting body). That in itself would not be an NCAA violation. It would also have to be shown that athletes were given preferential access.

The only people having difficulty are UNC and their shills

[swood1000]

...I read most of the transcript of Crowder's interview. It seems to me that she was prepped heavily for this interview by UNC's lawyers by being told to point out ad nauseum that whatever she did for athletes, she did for non-athletes as well. ...

Crowder was also limited by the contents of her interview with Wainstein (the one that UNC has been trying to get excluded, and which has not been released). That one was given under penalty of being charged with a felony if she was caught in a lie. No doubt the coaching by UNC for this interview had to take that first interview into consideration so as to avoid contradictions. They may also have coached her before that one, but evidently they weren't happy with the result. We can probably count on the enforcement staff in their reply to point out any discrepancies.

[swood1000]

The only people having difficulty are UNC and their shills

I don't know. You seem to be implying that only UNC and their shills would fail to see this as unequivocal academic fraud. However this runs into the problem that the enforcement staff didn't charge academic fraud so that theory requires the assumption that the enforcement staff is incompetent or corrupt. I think it's more likely that other constraints are involved, such as the difficulty of proving that an easy class fell below the line declared by the NCAA to be the minimum academic standard, and so was fraudulent, and whether the NCAA even is competent to make such a judgment.

[OldPhiKap]

I don't know. You seem to be implying that only UNC and their shills would fail to see this as unequivocal academic fraud. However this runs into the problem that the enforcement staff didn't charge academic fraud so that theory requires the assumption that the enforcement staff is incompetent or corrupt. I think it's more likely that other constraints are involved, such as the difficulty of proving that an easy class fell below the line declared by the NCAA to be the minimum academic standard, and so was fraudulent, and whether the NCAA even is competent to make such a judgment.

The other factor -- and it pains me to say this -- is that UNC appears to be outlawyering the NCAA. Bigly.

When I first started trying cases over a quarter of a century ago, a wise seasoned lawyer counselled me to always build error into a case. In other words, have a good issue to bring up on appeal if the verdict goes south. UNC is mounting a very vigorous backfight for the appeal (in this case, a challenge on the record that this is beyond the jurisdiction of the NCAA and therefore any penalty is ultra vires, arbitrary, and capricious).

When you know you're dead on the facts, build a legal defense for the appeal.

[swood1000]

The other factor -- and it pains me to say this -- is that UNC appears to be outlawyering the NCAA. Bigly.

When I first started trying cases over a quarter of a century ago, a wise seasoned lawyer counselled me to always build error into a case. In other words, have a good issue to bring up on appeal if the verdict goes south. UNC is mounting a very vigorous backfight for the appeal (in this case, a challenge on the record that this is beyond the jurisdiction of the NCAA and therefore any penalty is ultra vires, arbitrary, and capricious).

When you know you're dead on the facts, build a legal defense for the appeal.

I'm willing to agree that the NCAA is being outlawyered, which is often the case when a wealthy defendant is charged with a crime. But I'm not sure that we can ascribe their failure to charge outright academic fraud, or their failure to declare the paper classes to be null and void, to their incompetence. As Jay Bilas likes to say, everybody knows that there are plenty of classes out there that are just as easy as these paper classes were. Where exactly is the academic fraud line to be drawn? The NCAA is saying that it doesn't care how easy the class is, as long as athletes don’t get preferential access. I'm not sure that any other approach could have worked.

[swood1000]

There appears to be more slight-of-hand going on with the percentages put forward by UNC of paper classes taken by student-athletes. Wainstein had said that 47.4% of the enrollments in the lecture paper classes were student-athletes. The number that UNC came back with, 29.4%, besides using a different definition of ‘student-athlete,’ also included enrollments in independent study paper classes.

So why would Wainstein not include independent study paper classes in his figure? One reason could be that because of the way course enrollments for independent studies were handled in AFAM it was impossible to identify the number of students who were enrolled in independent study paper classes. (Based on assertions by Crowder and Nyang’oro that “most” of the independent studies offered by AFAM during that period were irregular, however, Wainstein assumed that 50% of the total AFAM independent studies enrollments were irregular, and used that figure in his calculations.)

UNC’s objection is that only 25.4% of active student-athletes enrolled in independent study classes, accounting for only 17.7% of the enrollments in these classes, so they want that lower 17.7% figure to be averaged in. The lowness of this figure is probably influenced by the fact that according to Wainstein, Coaches Holladay and Williams had a preference against independent studies and for the structure of a regular lecture class. As such, they directed Walden to encourage players to opt for lecture classes over independent studies. Maybe the athletic advisors generally followed this practice. Some reasons might be (a) because a lecture class looks less fake, (b) because of the limitation on the number of independent study classes that could be used toward graduation, and (c) because the undergraduate curriculum requirements that required students to take classes within a certain number of different curriculum areas or “Perspectives” could be not be satisfied with independent study classes.

UNC’s calculations are confusing. At one point they say that “the courses in issue” are referred to as the “Courses.” On page 6 they say that active student-athletes accounted for 37.2% of the enrollments in the Courses. Then on the next page they say “Active student-athletes accounted for 17.7% of the enrollments in the Courses that were taught as independent studies. The combined percentage of the active student-athletes that took the Courses was 29.4%.” This is how they arrive at their 29.4% figure to put up against the 47.4% figure used by Wainstein. But if student-athletes were 37.2% of enrollments in the Courses and 17.7% of the enrollments in that subset of the Courses consisting of independent study, how does it make sense to combine those percentages, and what is that supposed to represent? Anybody have any ideas? These percentages are also discussed on pages 37-38 and 75-77. The document is here.

I'm still trying to make sense of UNC's numbers. UNC objects to this statement by Wainstein:
 

"Between 1999, when the first lecture paper class was offered, and Crowder's retirement in 2009, a total of 186 lecture paper classes were offered with a total of 3,906 undergraduate enrollments in those classes. 1,852 (47.4%) of those enrollments were student-athletes."

UNC's argument is that the 47.4% only refers to lecture paper classes and that if you include independent study paper classes the number goes down. But Wainstein also made the following statement:
 

"We found that student-athletes accounted for 48% of all enrollments in the irregular classes, but only 8.3% of the enrollments in the regular AFAM courses. Accordingly, unlike Governor Martin, we found that student-athletes were far more represented in paper classes than they were in other courses offered by the department."

This talks about all irregular classes, not just lecture, and doesn't limit it to any particular years. So by attacking the 47.4% figure perhaps UNC is hoping that we will assume that the 48% figure is gone too. Or maybe the 47.4% and the 48% are the same figure, and Wainstein was just being imprecise.

[smvalkyries]

I remember a time when the ACC as a conference dealt with issues like academic fraud- Have we fallen so far that the ACC is impotent to act when the NCAA can't or won't or for whatever reason doesn't?
Has has our collective academic credibility fallen so low that we as a conference no longer care?
I wonder does anyone still thing the NCAA threat of someday sanctions is still adversely affecting Carolina recruiting ( probably some but the effect is waning?) Isn't it time we started looking outside the box for alternative solutions? I mean more concrete solutions than just losing respect for UNC-CH (eat) and no longer finding them worthy as rivals.

[swood1000]

I remember a time when the ACC as a conference dealt with issues like academic fraud- Have we fallen so far that the ACC is impotent to act when the NCAA can't or won't or for whatever reason doesn't?
Has has our collective academic credibility fallen so low that we as a conference no longer care?

UNC claims that the ACC supports its view that the actions of the ASPSA athletic academic counselors were permitted by NCAA Bylaws. It included the ACC interpretation as Exhibit 1-4 in its first bundle of exhibits.

One question they did not ask the ACC was whether it is permissible for the athletic counselors to lead student-athletes to avail themselves of anomalous courses, not listed as such, at a rate disproportionately higher than the general student body, and whether this constituted a benefit not generally available to other students.

[PackMan97]

UNC claims that the ACC supports its view that the actions of the ASPSA athletic academic counselors were permitted by NCAA Bylaws. It included the ACC interpretation as Exhibit 1-4 in its first bundle of exhibits.

Carolina asked John Swofford, the man under which all this malfeasance started, if everything was A. OK...and he said, "It's okay"! I am shocked. Absofrackinglutely shcoked! So shocke,d I can't spell or type correctl!

I'm also shokced that Swofford, former UNC athletic director, has supported UNC at every turn, above and beyond what he's done for any other ACC school.

I don't know. You seem to be implying that only UNC and their shills would fail to see this as unequivocal academic fraud. However this runs into the problem that the enforcement staff didn't charge academic fraud so that theory requires the assumption that the enforcement staff is incompetent or corrupt. I think it's more likely that other constraints are involved, such as the difficulty of proving that an easy class fell below the line declared by the NCAA to be the minimum academic standard, and so was fraudulent, and whether the NCAA even is competent to make such a judgment.

I was wrong, you guys see the unequivocal fraud, you just refuse to call it that. That is the heart of the difficulty facing a voluntary organizaiton like the NCAA. They rely on schools to self report incidents like this. When many players across different sports are discovered driving nice rental cars they didn't pay for, the NCAA expects the school to self report. When parking tickets are paid by a third party, or athletes are allowed to register with outstanding tickets (against university rules) schools are expected to self report. When the Athletic Department and an Academic Department conspire over the course of three decades to devlop and maintain a Potemkin Degree Program in order to keep students eligible, the NCAA expects schools to report it.

In this case, UNC has shown they have no honor, integrity or adults in charge. They refuse to call it academic fraud because they know what that means to "their precious". So this isn't a case of NCAA corruption or ineptness, it's a case of Carolina lack of honor and integrity. It is an example of the total corruption of a University which has become sports first and academics second. It is a display of what is wrong with this world.

[MarkD83]

The enforcement staff would like to argue that the classes were of type (b) but to do so they would have to demonstrate that the academic content was zero and the testimony of Crowder is that the academic content was significant.

However, Crowder is not a faculty member and therefore does not have the authority to determine what is or is not significant academic content.

[swood1000]

I was wrong, you guys see the unequivocal fraud, you just refuse to call it that. That is the heart of the difficulty facing a voluntary organizaiton like the NCAA. They rely on schools to self report incidents like this.

We can probably all agree that every university, probably without exception, has available classes for which little or no work is required (even less than was required for the UNC paper classes) and which guarantee a high grade. Universities do not want the NCAA evaluating rigor or academic legitimacy of their classes, which means that the system has unequivocal fraud built into it. The fraud of the UNC paper classes greatly exceeded the standard amount of fraud. Instead of isolated classes here and there, it was a concentrated fraud factory.

How would you frame the rule that captures the paper classes but not the isolated instances of classes having no rigor? The rule cannot put the NCAA into the position of having to evaluate the academic content of classes that did have some content (they had to submit a paper that included appropriate citations and a proper bibliography, and that met the page-length requirements). You could draw the line at classes that are not taught by a faculty member but what about classes taught by grad students or adjuncts? There are many legitimate instances of exams being graded by higher-level students at the direction of the professor. How do you differentiate those situations from one in which the department head assigns his assistant, a college grad, to grade independent study papers?

In this case the NCAA has skipped trying to formulate that rule, and has instead said that it has no problem with low/no content classes as long as athletes are not given preferential access to them. How do you think the NCAA should have proceeded?

[swood1000]

However, Crowder is not a faculty member and therefore does not have the authority to determine what is or is not significant academic content.

Neither does the NCAA have the authority to determine what is or is not sufficient academic content.

[swood1000]

The University of Georgia Public Infractions Report (2004) talked about the problem the NCAA has when faced with evaluating the academic content of a class:

"It should also go without saying that if an instructor awards grades in a class when he has no basis on which to assess performance that too is academic misconduct. The committee does not disagree that within the purview of academic freedom is the choice not to require attendance, to grade on activities rather than written work, not to administer a final examination, to employ a lenient grading policy, or even to provide all students with an “A” because performance will be evaluated on minimum standards that all students will meet. The committee notes, however, that academic freedom is not academic license, and that an instructor who makes all these choices in combination at the very least creates the specter of academic misconduct."

[MarkD83]

Neither does the NCAA have the authority to determine what is or is not sufficient academic content.

The NCAA did not make that decision either...UNC made that decision in the W'stein report. This is the report they are now trying to disavow.

This is where the circular argument that UNC is trying to make should end. Just like other schools they have admitted to the fraud in the W'stein report so the NCAA just accepts that and starts looking at transcripts and they have all of the transcripts. After the penalties are handed out UNC can make their case about whether the penalties are an issue.

Even now UNC is trying to redefine the number of students and student athletes in these classes in order to reduce the damage. If they really wanted to disavow the classes they would not care how many athletes were in the classes, they would just say they were legitimate and be done with it. So, UNC even now tacitly admits the classes are frauds.

If they had directed athletes to differential equations, organic chemistry, macroeconomics, (name your difficult class in your major) no one would be arguing about the number of students in the classes. Instead athletes were directed to classes that were "arranged" and graded by someone NOT on the UNC faculty by UNC's own admission and this was just confirmed by the person who was arranging and grading the classes. Once again UNC has shot themselves in the foot, this time by letting Crowder talk.