The three-and-a-half year investigation into academic fraud at the University of North Carolina has yielded...nothing.

The NCAA Committee on Infractions released its findings today and decided they could not conclude academic laws were violated when UNC created deficient "Department of African and Afro-American Studies" paper courses to the general student body, including student-athletes.

The only violations found by the NCAA in the case were the failure of two UNC staffers to cooperate with the investigation.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, who was the chairman of this committee, said in part:

The NCAA defers to its member schools to determine whether academic fraud occurred and, ultimately, the panel is bound to making decisions within the rules set by the membership.”

The crux of the findings is, while student-athletes benefited from the course, the general population of the school had the ability to benefit from it as well.  An earlier report said, while UNC student-athletes made up four percent of the student population at UNC, 48% of those who took the course were student-athletes.

The issues surrounding this course and the NCAA charges stemmed from an investigation into the football program back in 2010 under former head coach Butch Davis, now the head coach at FIU.  It was found seven players accepted more than $27,000 in impermissible benefits.

North Carolina was handed a one year postseason ban, stripped of 15 scholarships over a three year period and vacated 16 wins.  That part of the case was decided in 2012.

It was during that probe the question of the previously mentioned courses was uncovered.

 

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