With the details of UNC’s athletic-academic scandal now so well-known, what value is there in bringing to light another such story — in this case, that of former UNC football player Michael Waddell?
The (Raleigh) News & Observer recently published a report detailing graduate admissions irregularities involving athletes that occurred in the early 2000s. Some, understandably, see this type of reporting as journalists picking at a wound that would have otherwise long since healed.
As those who hold this view might have predicted, we feel differently. However minor these irregularities seem on their own, their cumulative appearance in multiple areas of campus across the years suggests the scandals, in plural, were not the work of a few bad apples spoiling the bunch.
Waddell’s story hints at the existence of institutional pressures that found release in multiple places. And while most of those responsible for succumbing to those pressures have left this University, troublingly little has been done to address the incentives for this type of fraud, which remain ingrained in the University’s allegiance to the NCAA’s model of major intercollegiate athletics.
We encourage those still paying attention to the scandal to use Waddell’s story to neither further condemn nor defend the University. Instead, let’s allow this information to complicate our understanding of the scandal’s true nature.
The action we take as a result must reflect a recognition that many fundamental causes of wrongdoing at UNC persist.
