In its Notice of Allegations against UNC, the NCAA has stated the obvious: there was no real institutional control over the athletics program in Chapel Hill for a very long time. We hope that the leaders of UNC will finally address publicly and honestly the causes and culture behind this broad institutional failure as they develop their response to the NCAA.
But UNC is not the only institution at fault. By failing to study student-athlete transcripts for the entire history of the course fraud scandal at UNC, the NCAA has also shown its basic inability to assess and guarantee the legitimacy of the academic experiences of athletes. Punishing individuals who have allegedly failed to protect a “collegiate model” that encourages fraud is both cowardly and immoral. We find it especially revealing, and discouraging, that Jan Boxill was singled out for one of the five named allegations. Boxill worked in a system where all who had regular contact with athletes were complicit in a charade. These people included admissions officials, athletic directors, academic counselors, coaches, and compliance staff for football, men’s basketball, and many other sports.
Finding and excising the “scapegoats” (most often low-level and low-paid staff) continues to be standard operating procedure for the NCAA and its member institutions. The NCAA’s conflicts of interest make it an ineffectual regulatory body.
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