When any department comes under fire for compromising its academic standards, all students bear the consequences. The irregularities currently under investigation in the African and Afro-American Studies department are no exception. The students in the department who allege that the investigation will debase the value of their degrees are deserving of sympathy but failing to see the bigger picture.
Maintaining a high standard of academic integrity across all departments boosts the value of any degree issued by this university, and allowing those standards to be violated has precisely the opposite effect. If the University fails to conduct its investigation in a timely and thorough manner, every student stands to lose something precious — the value of the degree they’ve spent four years earning.
This investigation comes in the wake of a series of missteps committed by members of UNC’s football team, ranging from plagiarism to improper contact with professional sports agents. The AFAM department became ensnared in the scandal when it was revealed that Julius Nyang’oro, then the department’s head, failed to catch plagiarism in a paper by disgraced former UNC football star Michael McAdoo. Nyang’oro has since stepped down as chairman.
The students representing the AFAM/AFRI Student Union who complained Thursday that the current investigation will compromise the value of their degrees are absolutely right. And they deserve sympathy, since presumably they had nothing to do with the errors of their professors and fellow students.
The only way to rectify these errors, however, is to keep pushing ahead with the investigation. Before anything can be fixed, the University must first determine the source of the AFAM department’s problems.
Moreover, those leading the investigation must not be afraid to uncover whatever ugly truth lies behind the so-called irregularities that precipitated the investigation.
Whatever short-term collateral damage is done to students graduating with AFAM degrees will be far outweighed by the long-term benefits all UNC students and alumni will accrue from attending a university without a reputation as tarnished as our school’s is now.
Even those students who claim that the investigation is being carried out in a “reckless and insensitive manner” will reap its benefits, though it may be hard to see this from their current vantage point.
Nonetheless, they would do well to show a little more patience. Last week, after reading a list of grievances to a panel of faculty conducting the investigation, representatives of the AFAM/AFRI Student Union walked out of the forum before hearing the panel’s response to their allegations.
