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.
Clarissa's Blog 
There is a lot of ugliness in that article. But, I would be all for having the football team take a very rigorous academic course on the history of Africa after having registered for what they thought was a gut course. That is what should have happened instead of having no course what so ever.
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Everybody would benefit from such a course, I believe. I’d really love to take it. I don’t know about people here in the US, but my education (primary, secondary, undergrad) was skewed in a way that excluded Africa completely.
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This is why I think college sports are evil, especially big time college football and basketball which appear to have a lot of dumbasses 😀 I think the problem is that neither sport has real minor league systems such as in baseball or hockey, guys who play these sports and aren’t academically inclined can turn pro and hone their skills instead while those who are can go to college and maybe turn pro in the future. This is just my opinion, many college hockey and baseball players tend to graduate or at least make it to their junior year before going pro.
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I think you are absolutely right. We have a great tennis team at my school. Every student on the team is doing great academically. But it’s a minor league and nobody comes to our school specifically to play tennis. It’s the same for our golf and swim teams. The best students are all on those teams. We even say to each other, “I’m so excited about this semester: I have 2 golfers and a tennis player in my course!
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Interesting, maybe it’s because there are fewer opportunities to go pro in tennis and golf or perhaps they are seen more as hobbies instead of a way to make a living. Whereas football and basketball players can make so much money, they may feel they don’t need to actually study any in college, just take some easy classes and get drafted and the bucks will roll in 😉 This is why there ought to be a minor league system in place, the guys who are not academically inclined can make money and play professionally.
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