The Real UNC Scandal......
as it has been asserted on this board, other boards and by UNC faithful is that the UNC scandal was about an inconsequential academic program, really bore little relation to athletics and should not taint the university, its students or their degrees. Let me start off by saying I think UNC has some fine and rigorous academic programs and it is unfair to taint those programs, staff and graduates but, the blame for that taint, if any, lies squarely within UNC and their leadership.
The scandal, in reality, was not about an obscure academic curriculum and a few untoward actors and the resolution was not about guilt or innocence. The scandal and its resolution was about the "Carolina Way" plain and simple. You have university leadership that was willing to write checks with seven 0's and an attached digit, to compensate legal representatives for concocting a story whereby they would foist the academic credibility of the university in to peril to save/avoid repercussions to their golden calf basketball program as well as other sports.
The "Carolina Way" is an arrogance characterized by the appropriate phrase "to seem rather than to be" and the AFAM situation was just a symptom rather than the actual disease. Other symptoms include the current chancellor's questionable research practices surrounding concussions and head injuries, significant questions surrounding the pediatric cardiac program of their medical center and various other examples down through the years. Make no mistake all universities screw up from time to time. Any large organization that has not made mistakes is probably not pushing their bounds of excellence. The real test of an organization's mettle is how it responds when mistakes are made.
The "Carolina Way" disease is allowed to fester through the attitudes of people like Dr. Sue Estrof, former Chancellor Carol Dolt(excuse me Folt) and many that say they were vindicated or it was an isolated incident and no big deal or some other cockamamie explanation/excuse. From my point of view there is a disease, it still exists although in a new variant approach and the lack of discussion is just the recognition that nothing really changed or will likely ever change because it is ingrained in the culture of the school. There are exceptions to that culture in the faculty, staff, students and alums of UNC. They are the ones I feel sorry for. I think we all have to ask ourselves the same question. Would we be satisfied with handling a similar situation as Carolina did? If the answer is YES then we are closer to the Carolina Way than we might want to admit and if the answer is NO we are more like the exceptions in Chapel Hill.
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Posted: 04/02/2021 at 5:00PM