Topper wrote:I haven't seen the UNC course catalogue, but they should have just followed the lead of our friends at UT: Create an entire department or two of creampuff degree plans designed specifically to maintain the elegibility of their scholarship athletes. The kids don't have to graduate, but at least they don't have to work too hard to meet NCAA academic requirements while they are still eligible.
Ironically, Topper, that's a very near description of what UNC did. The problem, though, isn't that UNC failed to create a creampuff degree plan, but that they made it so far off the end of the creampuff spectrum that the "student" athletes never had to go to any classes or pretend to take any tests or pretend to write any papers. They basically weren't in school.
Two other things UNC screwed up on:
(1) Making the creampuff degree plan an African American Studies major. Any identity-oriented major (AA, women, LGBT, whatever) will tend to attract some instructors who are highly motivated by identity values, and it was indeed exactly some of those instructors who turned on UNC and are filing lawsuits, etc. Their creampuff should have been something no one would much care about or notice.
(2) Letting this drip out bit by bit, allegation by allegation. They've been getting negative headlines for more than a year now. Should've ripped that bandaid off a lot more quickly.
