Inside UNC’s outrageous academic scandal: athletes took fake classes for 18 years

The University of North Carolina plays for the national championship in men’s basketball tonight. But in the background is a slow-moving college sports scandal: For years, athletes at the university benefited from high grades in fake classes requiring no actual work.

And it’s unlikely that the university’s athletics program is ever going to be punished for what happened.

The academic scandal at UNC has been unfolding for years, with each new twist revealing even more disturbing findings about thousands of students being given grades for nonexistent courses at one of the nation’s top public universities.

But the gist is this: For 18 years, thousands of students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took classes with no assigned reading or problem sets, with no weekly meetings, and with no faculty member involved. These classes had just one requirement, a final paper that no one ever read.

Nearly a quarter of students who took the classes were football and basketball players. And the classes made a difference: good grades that students didn’t have to work for made more than 80 eligible to graduate who otherwise would have flunked out.

Still, UNC’s men’s basketball coach, Roy Williams, says he doesn’t think the program will face sanctions. The fact that the university’s academic scandal is so far-reaching is what makes it noteworthy. It’s also making it extremely difficult to punish.

Two members of the university’s African-American studies department — Debby Crowder, the student services manager, and Julius Nyang’oro, the curriculum chair who later led the department — were responsible for the scheme, with Crowder leading it.

A report from Kenneth Wainstein, a former federal prosecutor who investigated the scandal at the university’s request, explained how Crowder created “paper classes.” Some of these classes were independent studies, in which students are supposed to work one-on-one with a faculty member and write a final research paper. But there were no professors involved. (In the university’s systems, Nyang’oro was listed as the person in charge of the classes, but he didn’t actually work with students. Crowder signed his name to grade reports.)

Crowder assigned and graded the final paper, the only requirement in the paper class. The grades were usually very high, even if portions of the paper were plagiarized or written at a middle-school level.

Then the “paper class” fraud spread beyond just independent studies, according to the investigation. Crowder began creating fake lecture classes. The classes never met, and operated just like the fake independent studies. Then Crowder enrolled students in actual lecture classes, but exempted them from all requirements except for a final paper. In some cases, she would add a student to a legitimate class. That student would fail or get an incomplete for never showing up or doing the work.

After the student handed a paper in to Crowder at the end of the semester, she’d change the failure or incomplete to a high grade — without the knowledge or consent of the instructor.

Grades were about 10 percent higher than in other courses in the African-American Studies department: the average grade was 3.6, meaning virtually all students were getting an A or B on their sole assignment.

In some cases, the investigation notes, students took the research paper requirement seriously and put work into researching and writing about their assigned topics. But in many other cases, they turned in papers that were plagiarized, written by tutors, or that had only an introduction and conclusion with “fluff” in between. Crowder sometimes gave out passing grades even if students didn’t turn in anything at all.

Criminal charges against Nyong’oro were dropped in 2014; Crowder has never been charged. Both cooperated with the investigation, directed by former US Justice Official Kenneth Wainstein, a partner at the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

It’s not unusual for colleges to steer athletes toward easier classes, or classes that fit their travel schedules while their sports are in season. And the investigation suggests that even if most people at the university didn’t realize the paper classes were total frauds, some, including head basketball and football coaches, were aware that they were very, very easy.

Some counselors who worked in the university’s Academic Support Program for Student Athletes knew the paper classes went far beyond being an easy A and were academic only in name. When Crowder announced her planned retirement, this side was shown to a group of football coaches:

At the rest of the university, though, people seemed aware the classes were easy — maybe too easy — but didn’t know the extent of the fraud, according to the investigation. Within the African-American Studies department, some professors knew of Crowder’s influence, particularly with student-athletes, and criticized Nyang’oro’s leadership. But administrators, deans, and the university chancellor were totally unaware, according to the investigation.

That began to change in August 2011, when the Raleigh News & Observer began reporting on irregularities. Their report was prompted by a football player’s transcript, which showed he took a 400-level class (often open to graduate students) the summer before his freshman year.

But while other, less serious scandals, such athletes at Ohio State selling memorabilia to a tattoo parlor owner, led to people getting fired and

The investigation is highly critical of Crowder, who is described as the mastermind and main actor behind the fraud. But it argues that she had benevolent motives, as did other staff at the university who steered students into fraudulent classes.

Crowder, as the investigation tells it, was guilty of caring too much. Once a struggling student at UNC-Chapel Hill herself, she felt the college should be more inclusive of students who weren’t the “best and the brightest.” She was also known as a devoted fan of college sports.

“These two passions — her desire to help underprepared students and her love of Chapel Hill athletics — would ultimately lead her to cut corners to help students and student-athletes make their grades,” the investigators wrote.

Nyang’oro’s light oversight of the department enabled Crowder’s plans — and the report attributes the neglect to his need to his own travel and consulting schedule.

But he told the investigators he had more benevolent motivations. After two athletes he taught were forced to leave UNC due to poor grades, one was murdered. The other was arrested and ended up in jail. Nyang’oro “committed himself to preventing such tragedies in the future and to helping other struggling student-athletes to stay in school,” investigators wrote.

The UNC scandal has unfolded like a slow-moving train wreck. Its general outlines first became known in

Both Crowder and Nyang’oro have retired, and neither will face criminal charges. The Daily Tar Heel, UNC’s student newspaper, reported that nine people will face disciplinary action as a result of Wainstein’s report. All of them knew, or should have known, about the paper classes, according to the university.

Since 2011, the three investigations into the academic fraud have produced a slew of recommendations and reforms, many of which have been adopted. Those include random checks by university administrators to make sure lecture classes are actually meeting, new standards for admitting athletes, stricter reviews for faculty leadership, a new student records system, and new limitations on independent study credits.