Investigation reveals US university let athletes take fake classes

The University of North Carolina ran a “shadow curriculum” to ensure it maintained its reputation for sporting excellence, an independent investigation has found.

A scathing 131-page report by Kenneth Wainstein, a former federal prosecutor, revealed an 18-year scandal involving at least 3,100 students, mainly athletes, whose grades were artificially inflated.

Sport plays a far more significant part in American universities than their British counterparts.

American football matches between the leading colleges attract millions of television viewers and the best players can expect to be recruited by the National Football League.

Even if the academic standards are not always especially rigorous, athletes are expected to do some coursework to earn their degree.

However, this was not the case at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, according to the Wainstein report.

Thousands of students took sham courses – known as paper classes – in which they did not have to attend lectures, take notes, meet professors or even stay awake.

Similar concessions were made to basketball players, it is alleged.

The students were expected to submit papers as part of their course work. But, according to the report, the students were given high grades irrespective of the quality of the work they handed in.

Nominally the courses were described as “independent study”.

But in reality the purpose was to ensure that the “students” achieved the grades needed to maintain their eligibility to remain at the university and play sport.

“Athletes couldn’t write a paper, they couldn’t write a paragraph, they couldn’t write a sentence,” said Mary Willingham, a former academic adviser turned whistleblower said. “It was a scam, it was a joke.”

Deunta Williams, one of the players who participated in the sham courses, said they were told about them by advisers. “You know you could chill,” he said. “When it was crunch time and you need an A or you need a B, you would have these classes.”

According to the Wainstein report, the shadow curriculum was devised by the university’s Department of African and Afro-American studies.

For five years, UNC insisted responsibility for the “paper classes” rested with the paper classes were the Julius Nyang’oro, the department chair of the African American studies program.

But according to the report the courses were in fact devised by his assistant, Debbie Crowder, to help students who were not “the best and the brightest”.

In a joint statement the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the University of North Carolina, said: “The information included in the Wainstein Report will be reviewed by the university and the enforcement staff under the same standards that are applied in all NCAA infractions cases.”

Carol Folt, the university chancellor, said four staff have been sacked and five more disciplined.