Have you heard about the scandal with the phantom African & Afro-American Studies Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill? The linked article starts with an extremely offensive suggestion that “child-rape” shouldn’t merit much attention from anybody and we should investigate academic fraud instead. I have no idea what the brainless journalist was thinking when making this enormously insulting claim at the beginning of what could be a very important article. I barely managed to get through the piece because I was so insulted by the article’s dismissal of pedophilia as a serious problem.
Here is what happened at Chapel Hill:
Last month a grand jury in Orange County, N.C., indicted Julius Nyang’oro for defrauding UNC by accepting payment for teaching a no-show course on “blacks in North Carolina.” The 19 students in AFAM 280 were current or former members of the Tar Heels football team, allegedly steered to the phantom class by academic advisers who sought to help elite athletes maintain high enough grades to remain eligible for competition. AFAM 280 was one of dozens of courses offered by North Carolina’s African & Afro-American Studies Department, formerly chaired by Nyang’oro, that never actually met.
Of course, now Nyang’oro will be stuck bearing full responsibility for what is obviously a huge fail on the part of the school’s entire administration. It’s scary to imagine a future where most universities will become phantom entities whose only goal will be to make football teams look legitimate.
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