A new report reveals that students at the University of North Carolina took fake “paper classes” over a period of 18 years in a scheme that was also used to keep athletes eligible to play.
In the classes, students were given high grades with “little regard” for the quality of their work,” according to the author of the report, Kenneth Wainstein. “These counselors saw the paper classes and the artificially high grades they yielded as key to helping some student-athletes remain eligible,” he wrote.
The courses were reportedly created by administrator Deborah Crowder of the Department of African and Afro-American Studies, together with former department chairman Julius Nyang’oro.
The report blames a lack of external oversight at the school that allowed the fraudulent activities to be carried out for 18 years through 2011.
A report in Sports Illustrated states that current North Carolina head basketball coach Roy Williams became uncomfortable with the nature of the courses and attempted to steer his players away from the department.
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