The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received its third notice of allegations from the NCAA over the academic-fraud case that has shaken the institution in the last few years. The News and Observer reports that UNC acknowledged receipt of the document on Wednesday, and said it would be posted online later.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association has sent notices to the university on two other occasions. The first, in 2015, charged the university with giving athletes impermissible benefits, and singled out the football and men’s basketball programs. The second, sent this year, charged the university with failing to monitor the impropriety, but removed references to the revenue sports. That prompted observers to conclude that punishment specific to those programs was unlikely.
The release of the third notice will have observers scrambling to identify likely NCAA sanctions, which are now probably several months off.
Thousands of students benefited from a system of fake classes that spanned decades in the department of African-American studies. The full extent of the fraud, which was aimed at keeping athletes eligible to play, was made public after an outside investigation in 2014.
