US Senate Cancels Testimony From unc Whistleblower(c/p)

May 11, 2014, 11:48 AM

US Senate panel cancels testimony from UNC whistle blower Willingham

By Anne Blythe

CHAPEL HILL — Mary Willingham, the former learning specialist who blew the whistle on the academic fraud scandal at UNC-Chapel Hill, was told on Friday that she would not be testifying before a U.S. Senate committee looking into the welfare of NCAA athletes.

In an email, Willingham said she had been contacted earlier about being on the witness list for the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation hearing titled “Promoting The Well-Being and Academic Success of College Athletes.”

“They asked me to do it, told me what they wanted from me and then called me back” at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Willingham said, to let her know that Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, decides who would be on the panel and that she had not been included.

CBSSports.com was the first to report that Willingham would not be on a roster of witnesses that included former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon, who is leading a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA over revenue gained from the use of athletes’ names and images, as well as Houston Texans running back Arian Foster and Ramogi Huma, the leader of an organization seeking to unionize college athletes.

Willingham told The N&O in 2011 that the tutoring program for athletes was steering them to lecture-style classes in the African studies department that did not meet. Instead, the athletes were told to write a paper and turn it in at the end of the class. She said the athletes typically received high grades.

Subsequent investigations by the university confirmed the “paper” classes but also found that nonathletes had also enrolled in them and received the same high grades. As a result, the university said the scandal was not an NCAA matter.

In January, Willingham was part of a CNN report in which she contended that, of 183 North Carolina football and basketball players she had researched since 2005, 60 percent read between the fourth- and eighth-grade levels, and between 8 percent and 10 percent read below the third-grade level.

Since then, UNC has raised questions about her data and she resigned after a meeting with the chancellor.

A witness list for the Senate hearing was not available late last week.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/10/3852284/us-senate-panel-cancels-willingham.html#storylink=cpy

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Subsequent investigations by the university confirmed the “paper” classes but also found that nonathletes had also enrolled in them and received the same high grades. As a result, the university said the scandal was not an NCAA matter.

So, put a couple of non-athletes in the no-show, automatic A classes and voila, no problem?

That's as absurd as saying it's OK to shop a player to Auburn and give $180,000 to his uncle because, the player says he didn't know about it.

Separate from the blatant academic fraud that is an embarrassment to the entire conference, the independent reviewers of her claim of low literacy levels found:
"One expert estimated about 7 percent of athletes from Willingham's research read at fourth- to eighth-grade levels in his report."

At Chapel Hill, the Public Ivy? LOL. How many at this prestigious "institution" are at the 9th grade level, 10th? At the incredibly arrogant UNC? The literacy levels are a joke, but not as bad as she had said, so it's no problem?

They should be slapped down hard and absolutely nothing will happen to them.

US Senate Cancels Testimony From unc Whistleblower(c/p)

Swoffie has some powerful friends.***

more likely 'cause she doesn't know what she's talking about

"Subsequent investigations by the university confirmed...

a 'literacy' comparison

That's not what Willingham found.

you still cite Willingham

Good luck debating with possibly a UNC grad that can read

you still telling lame and racist jokes?

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