UNC Releases Records Sought in Football Probe

Posted on June 16, 2011

The University has released phone records and records of parking tickets sought by media outlets as part of the investigation of the football program after the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled against UNC’s desires to keep the records private.

UNC informed a lawyer for the plaintiffs on Wednesday that the records would be available after the court upheld an April ruling in Superior Court in Wake County.

The University had appealed, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, in protecting the records. Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. ’65 wrote in a memo: “FERPA does not provide a student with an invisible cloak so that the student can remain hidden from public view while enrolled at UNC. The telephone number is not part of the education record protected by FERPA.” His memo said parking ticket records also were not among education records protected by FERPA.

Chancellor Holden Thorp ’86 argued: “Our responsibility is to protect the privacy rights of all of our students, whether they’re on the football team, in the marching band or in a chemistry 101 class. So this is really not about the football investigation. If this ruling were to stand, it would put the privacy rights of all of our students at risk.”

Thorp said UNC already had provided more than 23,000 pages of documents to the media groups.

The media groups asked for:

• All documents and records of any UNC investigation of misconduct by any football coach, player, sports agent, UNC booster or academic tutor;
• Unredacted phone numbers on bills for phones used by Athletics Director Dick Baddour ’66, Coach Butch Davis and former Assistant Coach John Blake;
• Parking tickets issued at UNC to 11 football players; and
• Names, employment dates and compensation to athletics tutors and mentors since Jan. 1, 2007.

Manning ruled that UNC did not have to release names of tutors in its athletics department.

The records suit was filed in October by The News & Observer of Raleigh, The Charlotte Observer, The Daily Tar Heel and several broadcast organizations.

The investigation into the Carolina football program, involving improper player contacts with professional sports agents and other outsiders and academic misconduct, is in its 11th month. The University is waiting to learn whether it will receive sanctions from the NCAA.

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More online…

• NCAA Gives Formal Notice of Football Investigation
  News from June 2011
• Another Football Player Investigated, Reports Say
  News report from May 2011
• Judge Says UNC Must Open Some Football Probe Records
  News report from May 2011
• UNC Awaits NCAA Ruling In 7th Month of Football Probe
  News report from February 2011
• Football Probe Nearly Done, Thorp, Baddour Tell Trustees
  News report from November 2010
• Video of Chancellor Holden Thorp ’86, Athletics Director Dick Baddour ’66 and Coach Butch Davis before the UNC Board of Trustees on Nov. 18, from tarheelblue.com.
• Two More Football Players Ruled Permanently Ineligible
  News report from November 2010
• Tutor’s Help ‘Impermissible’ in Gifts as Well as Academics
  News report from November 2010
• 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, available online to Carolina Alumni members.
• How the Tutoring Program and Honor System Work At UNC
  News report from October 2010
• Former Football Coach Blake Received Money From Agent
  News report from October 2010
• NCAA Sends Investigators to Talk With UNC Athletes
  News report from July 2010

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