Major Ethical Issue in Collegiate Sports
A major ethical issue which is currently happening across the country and appears will continue to happen in the future is academic fraud amongst athletes. According to the NCAA rules (Pariseau, 2013), academic fraud is when an eligible athlete’s work is done for him or her, the athlete cheats, or the athlete is enrolled in classes with little or no academic content. To further define academic fraud, the NCAA also includes all forms of plagiarism, fabrication, deception, bribery, sabotage, professorial misconduct, and impersonation (Pariseau, 2013). Two examples of major college sports programs that were given heavy penalties by the NCAA due to academic fraud are Southern Methodist University and …show more content…
The main violation that was found was between 2004 and 2012, the university enrolled many of its athletes in classes that were either non-existent, or had little to no academic value. The SACS investigation concluded that 60% of the football and basketball teams could only read between a fourth and eighth grade level and 10% read below a third grade level. This also meant that all of the high school diplomas these students received were fraudulent. In its final decision, the SACS placed UNC on twelve months of probation after finding seven violations including academic fraud, academic integrity, and failure to monitor its sports programs (Williams, 2014). As of August, 2015, the NCAA has delayed handing down sanctions based on new allegations of more violations from the school’s women’s basketball and soccer teams (Parish, 2015).
According to a recent report in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Willens, 2015), the NCAA is currently investigating twenty university athletic programs for academic fraud. The report cited tougher academic eligibility standards enacted by the NCAA in 2012 for the increase in academic fraud cases. While academic violations of this nature appear to be more prevalent these days, Roderick Davis, Chairman of the NCAA Committee on Academics, said the …show more content…
To determine if a plan such as this has been successful, a school should constantly be reviewing its graduation rates, transfer rates, dropout rates, and academic fraud cases brought before the school board. While it is impossible to stop every fraudulent act on a college campus, having a plan like the one stated above is crucial in preventing much of that fraud. Setting up institutional controls may be time consuming, but these controls will go a long way to keeping a school off the NCAA hot seat, and on the path to academic honesty and
A major ethical issue which is currently happening across the country and appears will continue to happen in the future is academic fraud amongst athletes. According to the NCAA rules (Pariseau, 2013), academic fraud is when an eligible athlete’s work is done for him or her, the athlete cheats, or the athlete is enrolled in classes with little or no academic content. To further define academic fraud, the NCAA also includes all forms of plagiarism, fabrication, deception, bribery, sabotage, professorial misconduct, and impersonation (Pariseau, 2013). Two examples of major college sports programs that were given heavy penalties by the NCAA due to academic fraud are Southern Methodist University and …show more content…
The main violation that was found was between 2004 and 2012, the university enrolled many of its athletes in classes that were either non-existent, or had little to no academic value. The SACS investigation concluded that 60% of the football and basketball teams could only read between a fourth and eighth grade level and 10% read below a third grade level. This also meant that all of the high school diplomas these students received were fraudulent. In its final decision, the SACS placed UNC on twelve months of probation after finding seven violations including academic fraud, academic integrity, and failure to monitor its sports programs (Williams, 2014). As of August, 2015, the NCAA has delayed handing down sanctions based on new allegations of more violations from the school’s women’s basketball and soccer teams (Parish, 2015).
According to a recent report in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Willens, 2015), the NCAA is currently investigating twenty university athletic programs for academic fraud. The report cited tougher academic eligibility standards enacted by the NCAA in 2012 for the increase in academic fraud cases. While academic violations of this nature appear to be more prevalent these days, Roderick Davis, Chairman of the NCAA Committee on Academics, said the …show more content…
To determine if a plan such as this has been successful, a school should constantly be reviewing its graduation rates, transfer rates, dropout rates, and academic fraud cases brought before the school board. While it is impossible to stop every fraudulent act on a college campus, having a plan like the one stated above is crucial in preventing much of that fraud. Setting up institutional controls may be time consuming, but these controls will go a long way to keeping a school off the NCAA hot seat, and on the path to academic honesty and