Easy A for all

It is curious that the academic scandal involving the Afro-American studies department at UNC-CH has focused on just a small percentage of the students who took the courses. Who steered the non-athletes to these classes?

If there was no outside effort to recruit these students, why must there have been an organized effort to recruit athletes? Were fraternities and sororities and service organizations involved in attracting non-athletes to these easy courses?

A professor was able to collect a salary without teaching, and students could get decent grades with little effort. This looks like a self-contained scandal involving a lazy professor and a product that easily sells itself.

The student quest for the easy “A” has existed for decades, and the scandal may lie in media attempts to transform the mundane to the mendacious.

Tom Field

Chapel Hill