North Carolina avoided major sanctions after the NCAA could not conclude the school violated academic rules when it made available deficient Department of African and Afro-American Studies "paper courses" to the general student body, including student-athletes.
The panel found two violations in this case -- the former department chair and a former curriculum secretary failed to cooperate during the investigation.
The investigation centered on a system in which a significant percentage of student-athletes took classes that had academic irregularities -- and whether that resulted in those athletes receiving an impermissible benefit. The classes were taken by more than 3,100 students -- nearly half of them athletes -- from 1993 to 2011.