Opinion: UNC’s legal defense in athletes’ lawsuit is hypocritical

On May 15, UNC filed additional documents in a suit brought against the University by former UNC athletes Rashanda McCants and Devon Ramsay. The NCAA was also named as a defendant.

The suit alleges that UNC violated implied contracts by failing to provide the plaintiffs with an adequate education in exchange for their athletic performances. It also alleges that the NCAA failed to “protect the education and educational opportunities of student-athletes (including the provision of academically sound courses).”

According to documents obtained by CBS Sports, part of UNC’s defense is that there are no grounds for the assertion that UNC had a legal responsibility to provide an adequate education.

This defense from UNC is hypocritical given their support for a model that proposes to compensate athletes with education.

McCants and her brother Rashad have long been speaking out on behalf of student-athletes who took “paper” classes.

Rashad McCants told ESPN in 2014 that he thought he didn’t have to go to class.

“You just show up and play,” he said.

“You’re not there to get an education, though they tell you that.”

In short, the McCants siblings and Ramsay played for no pay but were supposedly compensated with a world class UNC education. But Rashad McCants’ unofficial transcript shows that he received 10 A’s in his African-American studies classes. In his classes outside the Department of African and Afro-American Studies, he received six C’s and three failing grades. He told ESPN that he assumed tutors writing papers for athletes was to be expected.

The University administration supports the collegiate model, under which scholarships are exchanged for an athlete’s skills. In order for this system to function with semblance of fairness, the University has to hold up their end of the bargain — assuring that students are indeed receiving a quality education, not being directed to fraudulent classes.

In UNC’s court filings is a clear instance of the University avoiding responsibility for allowing McCants and Ramsay to receive inadequate compensation.

The UNC administration can’t have it both ways. Under the current model, an athlete agrees to work without pay and in turn, bring money and prestige to the University.

If the University really believes that an education is concrete and adequate compensation for athletes’ services, they should not pretend otherwise in rebutting litigation for that compensation.