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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Recently, a decades-long academic scandal at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was uncovered. The systematic academic fraud was orchestrated by student services manager Deborah Crowder. Crowder has been accused of creating "paper classes" — registering sections of fraudulent independent study credit and classes that never actually met because they never existed. One source states that more than 3,100 students benefitted from these classes, receiving A’s and B’s for classes they didn’t take and preventing their GPAs from tanking.

We’re all familiar with the perks extended to college student athletes: exclusive dining halls, private gym access, their own tutoring staff and more. In this instance, the paper class scheme was utilized by student athlete counselors to ensure their athletes remained eligible to play in their respective sports.

Besides dealing a damaging blow to Chapel Hill’s reputation, this case opens the door for us to discuss the role that sports play in college culture and just how much importance our capitalist society places on college sports.

First, a look at the university. Universities aren’t just places of higher education. There are organizations, professional staff, bills and other programs that require large sums of money to exist on a university campus. USA Today reported that the SEC increased its total revenue to $314.5 million earlier this year. With that kind of money flowing in, it makes sense that universities would want to be a part of the sports industry. People will pay for sports entertainment, and that benefits institutions of higher learning with robust athletic programs.

But given the nature of the capitalistic society in which we live, we have to ask ourselves: How much are we willing to sacrifice for the sake of sports and sports-related profit?

Obviously, Chapel Hill was willing to sacrifice its academic integrity. Those degrees made up of paper class transcripts will be forever recognized as illegitimate. Even students with degrees from UNC who were not involved in the paper classes could have their academic credentials more closely scrutinized because of the scandal.

In 2013, Florida State University prioritized sports and profit over the safety of its students when Jameis Winston was allowed to play on the team and win the Heisman and a national championship despite rape allegations against him. FSU faced heavy public scrutiny when news about there being "virtually no investigation at all" made headlines. Although America’s rape culture played a major role in the mishandling of the Winston case, FSU’s decisions were also likely driven by the financial value of Winston’s athletic ability.

Our culture places a lot of weight on money and consumerism. The quest for profit often has a tendency to disrupt our moral compasses. When greed sets in and we prioritize profits over ethics, we send the message that sports matter more than students because of its respective financial value.

By design, capitalism creates winners and losers. When schools prioritize sports and profit over students’ rights — their right to a credible degree and their right to protection against sexual assault, in these cases — then students become the losers.

The long-term solution is to reform American capitalism and eliminate the winner/loser dichotomy.

The short-term solution is to stop giving student athletes special passes at the risk of infringing upon the rights and privileges of others. There are plenty of student athletes who don’t need paper classes to stay on the team. And if a star player needs to sit out a few games because of an ongoing investigation, that’s what the second-string players are for.

TehQuin Forbes is a UF sociology junior. His columns appear on Mondays.

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[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 10/27/2014]

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