What was the cost of the Wainstein Report? 3.1 million dollars, according to an invoice released by UNC last week.
UNC hired attorney Kenneth Wainstein back in February to produce a comprehensive report on the so-called “paper” classes and other irregularities in the formerly named African and Afro-American Studies Department, or AFAM. He and his team of ten researchers spent eight months preparing that report before releasing it in late October.
The final report was 131 pages long, with never-before-seen details about how far back the “scheme” went and who knew about it and when. According to an invoice, Wainstein and his ten researchers spent 4,905 hours working on it – and those were just the billable hours.
The $3 million dollar bill is pricey, but UNC officials say it’s worth it. Last month, system president Tom Ross told reporters the bill would not be paid by taxpayer funds – and while he couldn’t say at the time what the cost was, he said UNC was willing to pay whatever it took to get a full report.
“It will be very expensive – but you can’t put a price on the truth,” Ross said at October’s Board of Governors meeting. “And we needed the truth. The institution needed the truth. The system needed the truth. We needed to get to the bottom of this, because we need to be sure it never happens again.
“And so whatever it costs, in my view, will be worth it.”
Kenneth Wainstein himself earned the firm $714,000 for his work on the report that bears his name. Associate attorney A. Joseph Jay actually made the firm more, though: according to the invoice, about $1,075,000 of the total cost is for the 1,388 hours Jay spent working on the report.
