Hopefully, the people committing these offenses will be identified and punished accordingly.

The Huffington Post reports. Hat tip to Weasel Zippers.

UNC Professor Receiving Death Threats For Revealing Athletes’ Low Reading Levels (VIDEO)

North Carolina has been in an academic crisis mode for more than three years.

An NCAA investigation into the football program in 2010 expanded into a probe of how the nation’s first public university provides academic help to athletes. It led to a discovery of fraud in a department with classes featuring significant athlete enrollments.

Now, the debate of balancing academics and big-time sports at the university has been reignited by comments from a reading specialist about the reading levels of football and basketball players.

“It really has just been like we’ve been under siege for the past three years,” said Lissa Lamkin Broome, a banking law professor and UNC’s faculty athletic representative. “Now to the extent that we’ve uncovered problems during this siege, that’s a good thing — to find those problems and weed them out and to try to put processes in place to hopefully ensure … that some of this stuff doesn’t happen again.”

In a CNN story this week, Mary Willingham said her research of 183 football or basketball players at UNC from 2004-12 found 60 percent reading at fourth- to eighth-grade levels and roughly 10 percent below a third-grade level. She said she worked with one men’s basketball player early in her 10-year tenure who couldn’t read or write.

“I don’t believe it’s true,” UNC coach Roy Williams said of the story after Wednesday’s loss to Miami. “It’s totally unfair. I’m really proud of the kids we’ve brought in here. … We haven’t brought anybody in like that. We’ve had one senior since I’ve been here that did not graduate.

“Anybody can make any statement they want to make but that is not fair. The University of North Carolina doesn’t do that. The University of North Carolina doesn’t stand for that.”

Willingham, who hasn’t returned calls or emails from The Associated Press, has said in interviews that she has received death threats and hate mail. UNC police spokesman Randy Young said investigators have contacted her and “are responding appropriately.”