TO THE EDITOR:
In response to Dr. Jeffrey T. Spang’s decision to emphasize the “errors” of Mary Willingham in his recent letter to The Daily Tar Heel, someone needs to point out that Willingham’s research is and was completely irrelevant to her status as whistleblower. Willingham started talking to Dan Kane of the (Raleigh) News & Observer a full year before the Hartlyn-Andrews report saw the light of day; indeed, the University commissioned that report because of troubling Dan Kane stories that were informed by Willingham’s revelations.
To credit Willingham for “describing some of the details in the class scandal,” as Spang does, is to make a comical understatement that betrays a limited understanding of her role in forcing the university’s confrontation with reality. The athletic department’s efforts to discredit Willingham began only in fall 2012, but she has been the central player in the exposure of inside dirt since at least 2011.
As for her proposed “return to UNC,” Spang surely understands that Willingham would not be joining the faculty with an endowed professorship, nor would she likely be conducting further research (which she only did on the side even while in the academic support program.)
No, Mary Willingham should be put in charge of implementing the newly robust whistleblower policy that the University sorely needs. No one here knows more about the need to protect those who would expose corruption in the “southern part of heaven.”
