TO THE EDITOR:
Since last Wednesday, the Wainstein report has been repeatedly referred to as the closing of the academic fraud chapter in our university’s history.
But instead of pointing to the report as an end, the Wainstein report should the starting point for other third-party reviewers, who, with an understanding of UNC’s history and a desire to do right by all present and former students would not safeguard the “higher levels of the university” by stating that they had “insufficient appreciation of the scale of the problem.”
It is not yet time to close the chapter and to state otherwise is erroneous and underhanded. The UNC system President, Tom Ross, stated on Wednesday that “Because of that thoroughness and the breadth of the investigation, I believe we now know all that we are able to know about what happened and how it happened.”
But there is more to discover. The Wainstein report was not thorough enough and not broad enough. This scandal will live to haunt this university, not as a chapter we hardly remember like the 1936 cheating ring, but as a serious and widespread indication of our university’s values and standards.
It is in our best interest to linger in this chapter a while longer, continue to both support our administration and demand that they continue to seek answers for the questions that Wainstein either couldn’t or wouldn’t ask.
Charlotte Fryar
Doctoral student
