Key points from UNC’s response to NCAA’s Notice of Allegations

In North Carolina’s response to the Amended Notice of Allegations from the NCAA, made public by the school on Tuesday, the university accepted and agreed with the NCAA on two of the five allegations but also argued over the NCAA’s jurisdiction over academic issues.

In a 70-page document, which was sent to the NCAA on Monday and posted on its Carolina Commitment web site on Tuesday, the university began with a legal challenge to the NCAA’s tactics.

UNC argued that the NCAA was engaged in double jeopardy by including allegations from some of the issues tied to the football-specific case against the school in 2011. The school also argued that some of the charges related to academic benefits provided by Jan Boxill to the women’s basketball program fall on the wrong side of the NCAA’s statute of limitations, which goes back four years.

Among the university’s responses to the five enumerated allegations, notably, UNC disagreed with the “lack of institutional control” charge in Allegation No. 5.

Here are the key points from UNC’s response:

“Narrow in scope”

In the opening pages of its response prepared by Rick Evrard and Bob Kirchner of the law firm Bond, Schoeneck and King, UNC paints a clear picture of the academic problems it had in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies.

“UNC–Chapel Hill accepts full responsibility for its serious past academic problems, and it has addressed them directly without regard to cost or reputational harm,” Evrard and Kirchner wrote in UNC’s response.

[UNC says bogus AFAM classes don’t fall under NCAA jurisdiction]

The school’s response notes the roles former department chair Julius Nyang’oro and student services manager Deborah Crowder played in the scheme, which involved what the university describes as “anomalous classes” but what Kenneth Wainstein in his independent investigation in 2014 referred to as a “shadow curriculum.”

UNC also makes it clear that those problems were a separate issue.

“This case involves core institutional issues — academic issues — not covered by the NCAA’s bylaws,” UNC points out in the executive summary of its response posted on the web site.

UNC argues it managed those academic issues with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Committee on Colleges (SACSCOC) and other reforms instituted since the Wainstein Report.

“Therefore, our response to the ANOA is narrow in scope, focusing on allegations and issues specific to the NCAA,” Evrard and Kirchner wrote in UNC’s response.

The allegations UNC accepted

Nyang’oro and Crowder were charged with violating the NCAA’s ethical conduct legislation and did not cooperate with the investigation.

UNC accepted the NCAA’s allegations, Nos. 2 and 3 in the ANOA, without any qualifications.

It’s important to note, Nyang’oro and Crowder were not charged with specific academic violations tied to the AFAM scheme, but rather with what amounts to obstruction of justice.

It’s also worth noting, neither Nyang’oro and Crowder worked in any official capacity, as an adviser or otherwise, with the athletic department.

Crowder started the no-show class scheme to help football and men’s basketball players in the early 1990s, and Wainstein’s report shows she did so for almost 18 years, but unlike Boxill — an athletic academic counselor with the women’s basketball program — she had no official connection to either sport.

The allegation UNC did not accept

The university disagreed with Allegation No. 5, “lack of institutional control,” which is the one that carries the heaviest penalties from the NCAA.

The school argued that any institutional issues associated with the AFAM scam were part of the review from the SACSCOC, not the NCAA.

“Accordingly, though conduct related to the anomalous courses presents serious institutional issues, it should not and cannot support a lack of institutional control allegation under the NCAA constitution and bylaws absent an underlying rules violation,” Evrard and Kirchner wrote in UNC’s response.

The other two allegations

UNC accepted 15 of the 18 alleged instances that Boxill provided extra benefits in the form of academic assistance. But UNC disagreed that Boxill “engaged in unethical conduct” and argued that she did not “knowingly provide extra benefits.”

[Boxill defense claims she gave no special help to UNC players]

Therefore, UNC concluded that Boxill’s transgressions should be considered a Level III violation, rather than the more serious Level I violation as alleged by the NCAA.

In the fourth allegation, UNC argued the failure to monitor the enrollment of students in the AFAM courses between the fall of 2005 and summer of 2011 was not part of the NCAA’s jurisdiction.

The same allegation included the failure to monitor Boxill’s conduct, which UNC accepted but argued it should be a Level II violation, not Level I as alleged by the NCAA.

This story was originally published August 2, 2016 at 6:03 PM with the headline "Key points from UNC’s response to NCAA’s Notice of Allegations."