Between 2004 and 2012, 34 of 341 UNC athletes in revenue sports

had SAT reading scores (or equivalent ACT scores) less that 400

where 200 is the minimum score. This is far below the UNC 25th

percentile of 550. Given reports of "paper classes", plagiarism,

unauthorized help, and strenuous efforts to keep athletes

eligible, UNC's claim that "20 have graduated or remain enrolled

in good standing" must be taken with a grain of salt.

These admissions have come to light, mainly because of the

criticisms of Mary Williamham, who previously worked with many

UNC athletes. Willingham has been vilified by many, including

Provost James Dean, who called her research "a travesty".

Nevertheless, Bradley Bethel, a Willingham critic, privately

shared similar concerns with the Chancellor. Regarding the

Willingham data, the faculty council minutes state

a: "the administration did not have the dataset prior to the last

week"

b: "the test that was administered to the student-athletes was a

reading vocabulary subtest"

c: "claims about reading levels were based on confusion between

the standard score and grade equivalent."

The Provost is misinformed; I have been assured by an

eye-witness that he was given SAT/ACT scores, the full SATA, GPA,

and past academic eligibility Status. Of course, the University

always had possession of this information. Dean was told that

Willingham used "all the scores" and her own personal experience

with many athletes to arrive at her assessments. The claim that

someone with her background confused standard scores with grade

equivalents is ludicrous.

Outside experts were asked to evaluate Willingham's claims but

were provided with only the Vocabulary results. Obviously the

other information would be useful in confirming Willingham's

claims as one of the experts noted. What we have is a whitewash

by the administration. See http://tinyurl.com/kffmvn4 for an

extended critique.