We reported that a University of North Carolina professor was threatened with death after revealing athletes’ shockingly low reading levels.

Now, it looks like school administrators are acknowledging the professor was right.

The Herald-Sun reports:

UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt stood in front of members of the media Thursday morning and said the university is continuing to encourage healthy academic debate over the reading-level controversy while a third-party panel is organized to review the research.

UNC has gone back-and-forth in the media this month with university employee Mary Willingham. Willingham says her data show that some former UNC basketball and football players didn’t know how to read or write, or couldn’t read beyond an eighth-grade level, a claim that has gained national attention and was initially published by CNN. …

(Folt) said UNC is part of a small group of leading research universities that also have highly competitive athletic programs, and the university has acknowledged a past “failure” in academic oversight, referencing the academic scandal investigation into no-show classes, grade rosters with forged signatures and unauthorized grade changes dating back to 1997.

She said the university does not have evidence that these no-show classes were specifically created for student-athletes, but that class enrollment included a number of student-athletes. The unsupervised courses did not reflect university standards, she added.

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