Chancellor Carol Folt has announced the University will obtain an outside attorney to conduct an independent investigation into new information made available about course irregularities in the former Department of African and Afro-American Studies.
The department has been the subject of scrutiny since 2011, when an investigation revealed listed courses were taught irregularly.
The State Bureau of Investigation began investigating the department itself, and in July of 2012, then-department chairman Julius Nyang’oro, resigned. Nyang’oro was indicted in December by a grand jury for obtaining $12,000 worth of property under false pretense after the University found Nyang’oro accepted payment for classes that never met.
The independent attorney will have the freedom to ask difficult questions and follow the investigation until it runs its course, Folt said in her statement.
In December, the Orange County District Attorney’s office turned over 40,000 pages of discovery to the attorneys for those charged for their involvement in the UNC athletic scandal.
“I understand that this has been a troubling and difficult chapter in Carolina’s history,” Folt said in her statement to the University community Friday. “And I admire the extent to which the Carolina community has encouraged me from the start to look inward, to identify challenges and to take strong actions to address them.”
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