Dive Summary:
- The good news from the latest investigation into the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's grading scandal--in which hundreds of students in the school's Department of African and Afro-American Studies were given credit for no-show classes and benefited from unauthorized grade changes--is that athletics-related motivations weren't at fault.
- Faculty in the department were also cleared by the investigation's two new reviews (conducted by former North Carolina Gov. James Martin and management consulting firm Baker Tilly), which placed all of the blame on the department's former chair, Julius Nyang’oro, and former department administrator, Deborah Crowder.
- Unfortunately for the university, the reviews found evidence of erroneous classes and grades dating back to 1997, a decade earlier than previously reported, though the Baker Tilly review determined strong new measures put in place by UNC should prevent similar issues in the future.
From the article:
Athletics-related motivations are not to blame for the breakdowns within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Department of African and Afro-American Studies, in which hundreds of students -- half of whom were athletes -- received credit for no-show classes and benefited from unauthorized grade changes. That was what one might call the positive takeaway from the latest investigation into the scandal, this one comprising two new reviews by former North Carolina Gov. James Martin and the management consulting firm Baker Tilly (both tapped by UNC). ...