While Northwestern student-athletes consider whether to unionize, North Carolina student-athletes might get an A- grade if they can spell "u-n-i-o-n-i-z-e."
The Sporting News released a shocking report on Thursday into the already shady academic practices in the athletic department at the University of North Carolina.
According to The Sporting News, Bryan Graham, a writer for Sports Illustrated and Atlantic Monthly, took a screen grab of a recent ESPN video dissecting the academic scandal at North Carolina. The screen grab shows what is explained as a final exam a student-athlete turned in about Rosa Parks and received an A-minus grade for an African-American studies class.
Whistleblower says UNC put athletes in classes that never met and required only one final paper. This one got an A-. pic.twitter.com/HShyr6ivGm
— Bryan Armen Graham (@BryanAGraham) March 26, 2014
The "final exam" is a 148-word paragraph, as reported by extramustard.si.com, and contains grammatical errors such as the first sentence, "On the evening of December Rosa Parks decided that she. ..."
Another sentence starts, "Her and the bus driver began to talk. ..."
That the "essay" is so short and poorly written is disturbing enough, but extramustard.si.com then found another tweet from Graham that compared the essay to the first page of Parks' autobiography - "Rosa Parks: My Story." The essay basically copies the first page of the book with a few words rearranged.
According to The Sporting News, North Carolina basketball and football players were guided toward classes, specifically in the African American studies department, that did not require students to meet and gave out few assignments.
The report stated that enrollment for such classes was open only briefly to ensure that only specific student-athletes enrolled in the classes.
It added that a former North Carolina employee, Mary Willingham, did extensive research into studies of the Tar Heels student athletes between 2004-2012 and discovered that almost 60 percent could read only at an eighth-grade level or worse.
In January, the school ended funding of Willingham's research.
What do you thing should be done about the North Carolina grading policy concerning student-athletes? Comment below or tell us @SportsWN.
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