At the core of the scandal that has brewed at UNC for the past 18 years is one question:  Can a major university advance its mission to serve as a center for scholarship, research, and creativity while attempting to achieve national competitiveness in the big-time revenue sports of football and basketball? The answer for UNC seems to be a resounding “no.” Even as some conventional measures of university productivity (such as admissions and research grant funding) have grown, 3000 fake classes, disproportionately populated by athletes in a quest for eligibility, expose an irreconcilable conflict that undermines the entire university. Chancellor Folt, even in her skilled leadership efforts to navigate the turmoil since the release of the Wainstein report, does not seem to appreciate the conflict. She responded to a question about the conflict by saying, “Our core mission as an institution is academics. I believe we can also offer strong and successful athletics programs, and that in fact athletics advances our academic mission. While we accept full responsibility for the past, the wind is in our sails for the future because our students, faculty and staff are so strong.” The available evidence argues that we cannot offer strong and successful athletics programs. The evidence that athletics advances our academic mission does not exist. In sports, the term “head fake” refers to a feint or movement by a player to misdirect an opponent. This essay addresses four head fakes by UNC, steps motivated by big-time revenue sports that have undermined the academic mission of UNC.

Wainstein-confAt the October 23 campus meeting, masterfully presided over by Chancellor Folt, she responded to a question about how the university is attending to current athletes who may feel stigmatized or victimized by the sordid revelations in the Wainstein report. The Chancellor tried to convey appropriate concern by reporting that within the past few days she had met with the football team. As evidence that these players do not feel that they are the focus, Chancellor Folt warmly revealed that the first question asked by the team was, “Who is Wainstein?” It’s good that current football players do not claim to be stigmatized. More importantly, however, doesn’t this naïve question simply reveal more evidence that there are gaps between the culture of football for athletes and the culture of campus life in general? The co-existence head fake. The missions of big-time sports and academics may not clash because revenue athletes, sadly, do not seem to live on the same campus.

The diversity head fake is a second way in which big-time sports collide with the academic mission of UNC. In response to a question about whether UNC should admit students who are seemingly at high academic risk, giving undue weight to their athletic accomplishments, Chancellor Folt and others misdirect. The response is usually that UNC wants athletes, just as we are proud to recruit students who are first in their families to attend college or veterans or others outside of the admissions mainstream, because UNC believes that diversity enriches the academic environment. There is a fundamental difference, however, between those groups and the revenue sport athletes. The first in their families or the veterans are admitted because UNC recognizes that with an education, these graduates will personally benefit from their academic degrees and consequently enrich the state and the country. UNC benefits those students. Revenue athletes, in striking contrast, are admitted to benefit UNC, to enrich the athletic teams on which they labor. Yes, many revenue athletes have admirably trained long and hard in high school to master challenging physical and mental skills. Further, most revenue athletes earn their academic degrees, but a disproportionate number do not. It’s distressing enough that such students are treated as means and not ends. But as shown by the question “Who is Wainstein?” not to mention loads of other evidence of the isolation of revenue athletes, the demands of football and basketball make it extremely difficult or even unlikely that these students, on average, are able to contribute meaningfully to the intellectual, cultural, economic, and social diversity of campus life. The most disturbing part of this head fake is that too often it is largely through football and basketball that UNC and every other Division 1 school are able to recruit African-American males to campus. If diversity is an educational value for UNC, it is hardly advanced by taking advantage of revenue athletes—using them as means and not ends—by accepting their isolation from the academic mainstream and campus life. Utilizing revenue sports as the primary mechanism for making UNC accessible to African-American males is a diversity head fake.

jan boxillAs revealing as the Wainstein report is about the irresponsible actions of Deborah Crowder and the unconscionable behavior of Julius Nyang’oro, the narrow focus of the investigation should not allow us to conclude that this scandal was limited to two key actors and nine collaborators. The overwhelming pressure to remain competitive in the revenue sports exposes many layers of irresponsibility or even guilt – the investigatory head fake. For example, the actions of Jan Boxill, a professor of ethics and the Chair of the Faculty Council during the heart of the exposures, have earned opprobrium for her. On top of the irresponsible actions that have been revealed, isn’t it possible that she, sadly, may have taken steps in her own classes to benefit athletes of whom she is so supportive? If she did, were her supervisors aware of these behaviors and did they act upon them?

Wainstein reports that he was persuaded that the most senior of officials, such as former Director of Athletics Dick Baddour and current basketball coach Roy Williams, had suspicions about fake classes, but were ignorant about the formal scheme. Absent the imperative to win football and basketball games, it seems possible that such senior officials might have demonstrated a bit more curiosity. Even recognizing the “pressure” to win, however, these officials and coaches are handsomely compensated, compensated far beyond most others at UNC, so it is not at all unreasonable to expect (indeed, require) that they be curious enough to assure that their charges are behaving appropriately and are being treated fairly. If UNC acknowledged this conflict and refused to participate in it, the motivations for this stunning lack of curiosity by educators would disappear.

Unfortunately, UNC leaders continue to use the term “student-athlete,” a head fake, a deception that was devised by the NCAA to obfuscate the fact that revenue sport athletes are indeed professionals, not amateurs. If students who play revenue sports are not workers, then universities are not required to provide worker’s compensation when disabling and sometimes catastrophic injuries occur. If these players are viewed as students, with the “athlete” almost as a hyphenated afterthought, then it is much easier to rationalize or much worse, be oblivious to, the failure to compensate them fairly for the millions upon millions of dollars that they generate for their universities.

The integrity head fake plays out in many ways.  To name a few:

  1. The UNC degrees conferred upon the thousands of students are not honest degrees. How will UNC repair this damage to its integrity?
  1. Many students who played on the national championship basketball teams of 2005 and 2009 were granted academic credit for fake classes. Will UNC act with integrity and return these championships? What about the many victories in other sports? Will those, in the euphemistic haze of the NCAA, be “vacated?” Why doesn’t UNC simply offer to forfeit those games?
  1. UNC has proudly announced many changes in procedures, rules, and regulations over the past several years in response to this ongoing scandal. For example, classes in the School of Public Health, of all places, have been photographed to document attendance, i.e. that classes are truly meeting. Would it not be honest to acknowledge that absent the inexorable drive to remain competitive in Division 1 revenue sports (that is, to maintain academic eligibility for students who did not honestly earn that eligibility), these regulatory costs in dollars and dignity would not have been implemented?

Head fakes are most effective when they become instinctive reactions by players, when they are unaware of their steps. These head fakes by UNC – the university’s instinctive efforts to respond to a threat, to dodge an opponent – result from blindness to the irreconcilable conflict between big-time college revenue sports and the academic mission. The Wainstein report is perhaps a loud whistle from a referee, or a bright flag falling to the turf indicating a penalty. Failure to acknowledge this basic conflict means that fouls will continue, the university’s academic mission will continue to be penalized. If this conflict is not addressed directly, UNC will foul out of the academic game.