UPDATE: UNC FORMER BASKETBALL PLAYER RASHAD MCCANTS: “UNC
CHEATED ME OUT OF AN EDUCATION”
A SPECTACULAR MAGAZINE EXCLUSIVE
was AfricanAmerican
Studies -- the
curriculum
that formed the
basis for the
long-running
academic
scandal.
“We’re not out
to vilify UNC.
We’re trying
to restore the
student-athlete
principle that
UNC’s really
been for so long
in the forefront
of,” said
Jeremi Duru,
a Washington,
D.C., attorney
representing
McAdoo who
also teaches law
at American
University.
It might look like they’re about to
make the big score, but most highlevel athletes are being robbed of
even more valuable life-enriching
educational opportunities, according
to some former top college athletes.
Back in July former University of
North Carolina and NBA star Rashad
McCants was protesting the loudest
and saying it’s not just about the Tar
Heels stealing education and physical
talent, but most major NCAA athletic
programs.
In November 2014 former University
of North Carolina football player
20
Michael McAdoo filed a lawsuit
against the school, saying it failed
to provide him and other athletes a
quality education by guiding them
toward sham classes.
Online court records say a lawsuit
seeking class action status was filed
mid-November in U.S. District Court
in Charlotte.
McAdoo’s lawsuit says that he was
guaranteed a good education while
being recruited by football coaches,
but was ultimately guided to
consider three options, one of which
Rick White,
UNC
associate vice
chancellor for
communications
and public
affairs, said the
school became
aware of the
lawsuit on
Friday and will reserve comment until
it has reviewed the claims.
McAdoo, who played football at UNC
from 2008 through 2010, was ruled
permanently ineligible in 2010 for
academic violations connected to a
tutor providing improper assistance
on a research paper for a class in the
formerly named African and AfroAmerican Studies department.
The lawsuit comes weeks after a
report detailing the academic and
athletic scandal at UNC revealed that
SPECTACULAR MAGAZINE | December 2014 | www.spectacularmag.com
more than 3,100 athletes and everyday
students took no-show classes in the
formerly named African and AfroAmerican Studies department for
nearly two decades ending in 2011.
The report by former U.S. Justice
Department official Kenneth
Wainstein said those classes resulted
in artificially high grades while
faculty and university administrators
either missed red flags or looked the
other way. The report also said almost
half the students enrolled in the bogus
classes were athletes, more than 10
times their proportion in the overall
student population. Athletics staffers
steered players to the classes when
they struggled to meet the grades
required to continue competing.
In the lawsuit, McAdoo said UNC
coaches and other representatives
“enticed these football studentathletes to sign the agreements
with promises of a legitimate UNC
education ...”
“Instead, UNC systematically
funneled its football student-athletes
into a ‘shadow curriculum’ of bogus
courses which never met and which
were designed for the sole purpose
of providing enrollees high grades,”
the lawsuit said. It also said the
curriculum featured hundreds
of courses which never met and
never involved a professor and that
hundreds of football student-athletes
were steered to the courses.
Also, the lawsuit says UNC has reaped
“substantial profits” from football
players, but has not provided them
with an education in return, thus
breaching its contract with McAdoo
and other student-athletes in violation
of North Carolina law. The lawsuit
also accuses the school of fraud by
promising “a legitimate education” if
McAdoo and others enrolled at UNC
as football student-athletes.