Nyang'oro Cooperating With Wainstein Probe

Posted on June 9, 2014

Julius Nyang’oro, the man at the center of the controversy over fraudulent academics at UNC, is cooperating in the latest investigation into the matter. Independent investigator Kenneth Wainstein told members of the news media on June 20 that both Nyang’oro and Deborah Crowder ’75, the former office manager in what was then the department of African and Afro-American studies, were cooperating fully with his work.

Nyang’oro is scheduled to be in court in Orange County June 25 to answer a criminal charge of accepting a $12,000 payment for a course he did not teach in 2011.

Meanwhile, Wainstein is leading a team that is looking into the roots and development of a pattern of classes, later were declared fraudulent, in the AFAM department.

Those classes were found to have consisted of a single term paper and no lectures. The practice started in 1997 — shortly after AFAM was elevated from a curriculum to a department — it peaked in 2005 and then dropped to near zero by 2009. In 2012, the department was renamed African, African-American and diaspora studies.

The University administration wants to know how the AFAM situation may have been related to athletics at the University, and South Building has promised that Wainstein is completely independent and free to go wherever the evidence takes him.

Crowder has been implicated in the fraud but, in exchange for her cooperation with Wainstein, will not be charged. Neither Nyang’oro nor Crowder has spoken publicly.

Nyang’oro was the department’s first and only chair until he resigned as chair under pressure in August 2011. He retired on July 1, 2012.

---

More online…

• McCants Says Fraudulent Classes May Be All That Kept Him Eligible
  June 2014 news report
• Judge Sides With UNC in N&O Records Suit
  May 2014 news report
• Willingham Says She Will Resign at Semester’s End
  April 2014 news report
• Outside Experts Say Willingham’s Claims Not Supported by Her Research
  April 2014 news report
• Athletics-Academics Issues Detailed on New UNC Website
  April 2014 news report
• Rights Group Files OCR Complaint Against UNC
  April 2014 news report
• Retired Professors Decry Faculty Reaction on Athletics, Academics
  April 2014 news report
• Retired Professors’ Letter on Athletics, Academics
  April 3, 2014, letter
• The Long and Grinding Road Continues: To a University trying to move forward and to its constituents weary of bad news, 2014 dawned with aftershocks: claims (disputed) of low college preparedness among some athletes and more painful national publicity. Like it or not, this is not over.
  From the March/April 2014 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review
• Crowder Won’t Face Charges in Fraud Investigation
  March 2014 news report
• UNC Launching New Inquiry With Outside Counsel
  February 2014 news report
• Folt Sends Message About Campus’s ‘Painful Journey’
  January 2014 news report
• National Media, Willingham Keep Scandal in the News
  January 2014 news report
• Nyang’oro Indicted in Probe of Academic Fraud
  December 2013 news report
• A Flag Is Down: A football season that started with high expectations is being played beneath the shadow of an investigation into improper outside contacts and academic misconduct. From the November/December 2010 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review.

---