We have been keeping track of the reports of academic fraud perpetrated by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill athletic department.

Business Insider’s Tony Manfred provides an example of the shoddy scholarship that was allowed to fester at the institution. At most, the following essay on Rosa Parks was worth a solid B plus.

In January the University of North Carolina publicly apologized for offering “phony classes” designed to keep athletes academically eligible since the 1990s.

In an ESPN report, ex-UNC football player Deunta Williams and whistleblower Mary Willingham detailed how these “paper classes” worked.

The classes — which were listed as “independent studies” on the course book — had no attendance, and students got credit for writing papers that always got either A’s or B’s.

Willingham, who called the paper classes “scam classes,” showed ESPN an example of one of these papers. It’s a one-paragraph, 148-word “final paper” on Rosa Parks.

The essay, titled “Rosa Parks: My Story” got an A-minus, Willingham says.

Here’s the text (h/t @BrianAGraham):

On the evening of December Rosa Parks decided that she was going to sit in the white people section on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time blacks had to give up there seats to whites when more whites got on the bus. Rosa parks refused to give up her seat. Her and the bus driver began to talk and the conversation went like this. “Let me have those front seats” said the driver. She didn’t get up and told the driver that she was tired of giving her seat to white people. “I’m going to have you arrested,” said the driver. “You may do that,” Rosa Parks responded. Two white policemen came in and Rosa Parks asked them “why do you all push us around?” The police officer replied and said “I don’t know, but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.”


 
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