The crux of the alleged irregularities proceeded from the UNC Department of African and Afro-American Studies. Over approximately fifteen years, the department offered two hundred
independent study courses, many without full adherence to University procedure for course provisioning or sufficient professorial oversight. The irregularities called into question the department's academic integrity and led to the
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools putting the university on academic probation for one year, a rare action against a major research university.
Overview '' magazine had a cover story by Paul M. Barrett alleging academic improprieties by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill regarding student-athletes. A basic charge by critics was that UNC did not live up to its end of the bargain by not sufficiently educating some of its student-athletes. Rebecca Schuman of
Slate.com accused the university of "abjectly failing some of its students" by keeping them "functionally illiterate." Gerald Gurney, president of the Drake Group for Academic Integrity in College Sport, called UNC "the mother of all academic fraud violations" because of "cooperation of friendly faculty and [a]
cover-up." In a 2021 article about the scandal, journalist and UNC alum Andy Thomason concluded that no nefarious individuals could be blamed for the scandal, but instead the substandard classes were the result of a series of decisions by multiple people, mostly well-intentioned, operating for years under the powerful forces of money-making college athletics.
Initial accusations Suspicions about the UNC Department of African and Afro-American Studies were raised as early as 2011. UNC defensive end
Michael McAdoo filed a lawsuit against the NCAA on July 1, 2011, seeking reinstatement to the football team. The NCAA declared McAdoo ineligible for accepting improper benefits and committing academic fraud, based on the UNC Undergraduate Honor Court finding that McAdoo committed academic dishonesty by having Jennifer Wiley complete a bibliography and works-cited section on a research paper for an AFAM class. On July 13, a North Carolina Superior Court judge in
Durham refused to grant an injunction against the NCAA, thus upholding ineligibility for McAdoo. On September 1, 2011, just over a week after Kane's article about Austin's transcript was published, AFAM department chair Julius Nyang'oro resigned from his executive position but remained on faculty. More controversy for AFAM came after the transcript of former North Carolina football and basketball player
Julius Peppers was found under a University of North Carolina web address (www.unc.edu) by members of
PackPride, a
Scout.com community for fans of rival school
NC State. A university staffer originally posted the transcript with Peppers's identifying information removed on a secure UNC server as a test record in 2001. Six years later, another staffer mistakenly moved the test record to an unsecured server. Through his agent, Peppers confirmed that the transcript was his and stated that there was "no academic fraud." University chancellor
Holden Thorp later apologized to Peppers. The report examined AFAM classes from the summer 2007 to summer 2011 sessions. Among the findings in the Hartlyn-Andrews report: • Thirty-six percent of students enrolled in questionable AFAM classes were football players. • There was no evidence showing that student-athletes who took AFAM classes received preferential treatment. Also, some professors never showed up to teach classes. In some instances, the only course requirement of students was to submit a paper at the end of the class. • Among grade changes for student-athletes, 106 were identified as "unauthorized", 454 as "potentially unauthorized", 373 were "inconclusive", and 203 were legitimate. There were felony fraud charges brought against Nyang'oro for being paid $12,000 to teach a non-existent class, but these charges were dropped by the
Orange County district attorney based on recommendations from Kenneth Wainstein in exchange for Nyang'oro's cooperation.
Accusations by Mary Willingham One of the academic tutors assigned to help student-athletes was Mary Willingham, who was hired by the university in 2003 to assist student-athletes with their academic work. In a November 2012 interview with Dan Kane of
The News & Observer, Willingham made her initial claims about the university helping student-athletes stay eligible via improper assistance. In 2013, the Drake Group gave Willingham the
Robert Maynard Hutchins Award for being "a university faculty or staff member who defends the institution's academic integrity in the face of college athletics." In early 2014, Willingham approached national media to express her concerns about the university. In interviews with
Sara Ganim of
CNN in January and Paul M. Barrett of
Bloomberg Businessweek in March, Willingham alleged: • Students accessed a team-maintained computer hard drive which contained a database of previous papers, and submitted recycled documents with cosmetic changes. The review board disputed her findings on the grounds that her methodology was not appropriate. Willingham was also interviewed by
Bernard Goldberg in a report for
HBO's
Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel that was broadcast on March 25, 2014. The report was a general look at how some top NCAA Division I schools hire learning specialists like Willingham to help keep student-athletes eligible. A representative for UNC stated in response that HBO reported on "information that has previously been reported and discussed." A segment by
ESPN's
Outside the Lines from March 25, 2014 drew attention because Willingham showed a 146-word essay about
Rosa Parks and claimed that an unnamed student-athlete at UNC earned an A-minus in an AFAM class for turning that essay in. However, according to
Slate.com, the paper shown by Willingham "was most likely a draft of one piece of a take-home final for a legitimate introductory course."
The News & Observer stated in a clarification note to a story that mentioned that essay: "It is unclear what grade the student received for the essay. Willingham said it was a class that met, and had other assignments." In April 2014, Willingham announced her resignation. In June 2014, Willingham filed a
lawsuit against UNC. In August 2014, citing posts in the
Scout.com UNC message board
Inside Carolina, Dan Kane reported in
The News & Observer that passages in Willingham's 2009 master's thesis appeared to be plagiarized.
Accusations by Rashad McCants , a member of the North Carolina basketball team that won the
2005 NCAA championship, received national attention for claiming to have had a substandard education at North Carolina. He met with Representative
Tony Cárdenas (left) to discuss NCAA reform issues. On June 6, 2014, the
ESPN program
Outside the Lines broadcast an interview with
Rashad McCants, who was a starter on the
North Carolina basketball team that won the
2005 NCAA championship, in which McCants claimed to have taken phony classes and had tutors write his classwork. However, all sixteen other members of the 2005 team released a statement which disputed McCants's account. In contrast, in a noted 2004 interview with television station
WRAL, McCants compared attending UNC with being in jail. Interviewed again on
Outside the Lines on June 11, McCants stood by his claims about his academic experience at North Carolina. He also called on his fellow members of the 2004–05 basketball team to release their university transcripts because, in his opinion, "the truth is there in the transcripts" regarding bogus classes. University officials contacted McCants via mail and text message in the days following ESPN's initial interview with McCants, because McCants expressed "knowledge of potential NCAA rule violations involving the University of North Carolina," according to a letter signed by the athletics director of compliance. However, McCants had not responded as of July 7, nor had he discussed his claims with the NCAA, according to the
Associated Press. Investigators for the
Wainstein Report, released in October 2014, also noted that no evidence had been produced by McCants that substantiated his claims. ==Actions by the university==