UNC gets 1-Week Extension to Respond to 5 NCAA Charges
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina will wait another week before responding to five NCAA charges.
The school issued a statement Friday saying UNC and others involved in the case had requested an extension to Monday's response deadline. The statement said UNC will respond to the NCAA's Notice of Allegations (NOA) on Aug. 1, then publicly release a copy a day later after a review and possible redactions to comply with privacy laws.
There is no new information in the case nor has there been a change to the NOA sent in April, UNC said in the statement.
That document charged UNC with lack of institutional control and four other potentially top-level violations tied to the school's long-running academic fraud scandal. The school and individuals charged had 90 days to respond.
That timeline fell on a Sunday, so the deadline was originally moved to Monday.
The response is the latest procedural step in a case that began as an offshoot of a 2010 NCAA probe into the football program. From there, the NCAA enforcement staff gets 60 days to respond. That would eventually lead to a hearing with an infractions committee panel, with a ruling weeks to months afterward — a timeline likely to carry the case into 2017.
The case centers on independent study-style courses requiring a research paper or two while offering GPA-boosting grades in the formerly named African and Afro-American Studies (AFAM) department. Many were misidentified as lecture courses that didn't meet.
A 2014 review by former U.S. Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein estimated more than 3,100 students were affected between 1993 and 2011, with athletes across numerous sports making up roughly half the enrollments.
It's the second case delay since the NCAA first filed charges last year. UNC was near its August 2015 response deadline when it reported additional information for review, pausing the process for eight months until the arrival of the new NOA.
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