Q&A with former N.C. Supreme Court justice Robert Orr on UNC's new Notice of Allegations from NCAA

UNC released its third Notice of Allegations from the NCAA on Thursday. The notice included references to men's basketball and football, which were not included in the last NOA. Robert Orr, a former N.C. Supreme Court justice and UNC professor of law, spoke with Assistant University Editor Jamie Gwaltney about the amended NOA. 

The Daily Tar Heel: From your professional perspective, what is your impression of the NOA? 

Robert Orr: … The first amended NOA, which I think most people would see as softening the allegations and potential culpability of the University, I think, and I’m guessing what happened is the Committee on Infractions — which is not comprised of staff, but are various faculty and athletic representatives from around the country — did not agree with staff’s second NOA nor with UNC’s, shall we say, defense and maybe even took a little umbrage at UNC’s position.

And, at least as I think I understand, the Committee on Infractions which instructed the staff to throw that first amended NOA out the window and to redo a second one more consistent with the first NOA. 

DTH: What do you think caused the change in harshness between the second and third NOA's?

RO: I think that there has been a good bit of public pressure on the NCAA generally and probably the Committee on Infractions and based upon that first amended NOA, they were trying to go easy on Carolina and trying to sweep the academic issues if not under the rug, then at least quickly get them out of the way. And certainly, they are trying to avoid the academic fraud label that continued to categorize this as impermissible benefits, which I think is a real stretch based upon the way players have been treated in these allegations.

But I think in large part from the Wainstein report, the aggregate issues that had regarding the academics circumstances are pretty egregious and in a far more publicly exposed. 

DTH: Why would the new NOA be harsher?

RO: I think in some respects the NCAA and UNC would like for this to go away, but there is no way this will go away and the evidence of what happened in many ways is out there for the public to see and I think the NCAA feels a lot of pressure to punish UNC accordingly.

Now I do think one of UNC’s defenses has been that, ‘Well the NCAA knew its part of the academic problems and they didn’t do anything about it originally,’ and I think UNC is exactly right. I think the NCAA staff had enough evidence early on — there were some real problems in this area — and just looked the other way.

And I understand UNC's frustrations, but I think you have to draw a distinction between staff decisions made by the NCAA and the committees that are made up of non-staff faculty and athletic administrators from around the country.

The other interesting thing is that the NCAA is trying to say that it has no responsibility for these kind of academic issues that have happened at UNC, which I think is totally hypocritical. I think they do have responsibility and they do have accountability for it.

But I think the NCAA is trying to have it both ways, they want to say, ‘We’re not accountable for these academic problems, but we’re going to punish you for these academic problems and we’re going to be involved in all our other problems pertaining academics.'

DTH: Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham said he was concerned over the lack of consistency with the NCAA's investigation. What do you think of his concerns?

RO: He is exactly right. The NCAA totally is in how they handle these alleged violations cases … The NCAA has been grossly unfair to those athletes in the process and how the systems work. And under my criticisms with UNC, UNC has not been willing to step up and push for reforms to protect the student who is playing sports, the same way they now want to be protective procedurally when the NCAA after them.

My perspective is, if anybody deserves due process and a fair and open system, it’s the young men and women playing these sports. 

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