Just as March Madness starts cranking up, a story that the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill[“UNC”]would much prefer gets buried…

It was reported the other day on Jonathan Turley’s site that former UNC Academic Advisor Mary Willingham[pictured above]had resolved her Whistleblower case against the University – to the tune of $335,000. Willingham, pictured above, had publicly criticized the literacy levels of UNC athletes. She further claimed that after doing so, UNC superiors retaliated by demoting her and giving other responsibilities that would have required extensive training. Willingham also alleged that university officials had slandered her by calling her a “liar”.

In October, 2014, former federal prosecutor Kenneth Wainstein released a lengthy report which summarized his investigation into scholastic shenanigans involving UNC athletes. He concluded that academic counselors regularly steered “student athletes” to “irregular” classes in the UNC Chapel Hill African and Afro-American Studies Department. Seems that some of the classes were a little odd – as there were no teachers and the classes never actually met. Yep, that is irregular. Wainstein also concluded that similar nonsense had been going on for 18 years[ending in 2011] and involved 169 athletes, whose grades in these make-believe courses kept them eligible to run around on football fields, and basketball courts proudly wearing the pale blue of UNC.

One has to assume that Wainstein’s report would have been a focal point of Willingham’s case- which likely accelerated UNC’s decision to pay Ms. Willingham.