Amended notice of allegations seems more favorable to North Carolina
When the NCAA dragged its feet for months in sending North Carolina an amended Notice of Allegations, many wondered whether the lengthy delay suggested that investigators had found new evidence that might lead to additional charges.
That doesn’t appear to be the case.
The amended Notice of Allegations that North Carolina received on Monday isn’t strikingly different from the original one the university received last May. North Carolina still faces five top-level violations, but the softer wording suggests there’s less reason to believe the Tar Heels will be hammered with severe sanctions by the committee on infractions later this year.
The biggest change is to the first of the five major rules violations the NCAA discovered while investigating academic fraud in African Studies classes that benefited Tar Heels athletes in disproportionate numbers. Whereas that allegation in the first NOA was very broad and left the committee on infractions ample options for how it could choose to punish North Carolina, this one seems to be more narrowly focused on women’s basketball.
In the original Notice of Allegations, the NCAA stated that North Carolina athletes received impermissible benefits unavailable to the rest of the student body when their academic counselors obtained special assistance and privileges for them. In the amended Notice of Allegations, former women’s hoops academic counselor Jan Boxill is the only person specifically accused of knowingly providing extra benefits in the form of impermissible academic assistance and special arrangements.
There’s no specific mention of either North Carolina football or men’s basketball in the 13-page Notice of Allegations even though athletes from both programs were enrolled African Studies classes throughout the period in which the NCAA investigated. The Raleigh News & Observer has previously reported that North Carolina’ men’s basketball players were enrolled in fake classes in heavy numbers during the 2004-05 season that ended in Roy Williams’ first national championship.
While the wording of the amended Notice of Allegations suggests that women’s basketball will be the sport hit hardest by committee on infractions, it doesn’t mean football, men’s basketball and the rest of the athletic department will get away with just a wrist slap.
The fourth allegation states that from 2005-2011, North Carolina failed to sufficiently monitor its academic support program for student-athletes and the African Studies department. The fifth charges North Carolina with a lack of institutional control and asserts the athletic department cast a blind eye as to why so many athletes were enrolled in African Studies courses.
The remaining two allegations target African American Studies department officials Deborah Crowder and Dr. Julius Nyang’oro for their failure to cooperate in the NCAA’s investigation. Those are worded almost exactly as they were in the initial NOA.
North Carolina now has another 90 days to respond to the amended NOA, though the university may not require that full time period. The NCAA will then set a date for North Carolina to appear before the NCAA committee on the infractions.
What that means is that it could take until late 2016 or early 2017 for the Committee on Infractions to reveal the penalties and sanctions North Carolina could face.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
