NOT THE ONION.

Rick Pitino has just been named Academic Provost at the University of North Carolina!

R-E-L-A-X.

But Power Line's Paul Mirengoff suggests there's truth behind the tease.  "The sham courses were, indeed, available to all students."

Cold Spring Shops does not endorse all of Mr Mirengoff's continuation.

Many of the University’s athletes in high profile sports, especially football and basketball, fell into that category, and why not? They were admitted with inferior academic credentials (grades and/or test scores) and had to deal with the pressure and demands of competing in big-time sports.

But the athletes weren’t the only students admitted with inferior academic credentials. Students admitted to the University pursuant to race-based preferences also fit this description. Naturally some, and probably many, of these students would struggle if required to take a full load of real courses.

Thus, the sham courses were a natural (though particularly egregious) consequence of race-based admissions preferences. Their existence can be explained without positing a desire to help athletes inl particular. It’s quite possible — I would say probable — that this desire also existed. However, the determinative factor was likely a desire to relax standards for students admitted to the University pursuant to racial preferences. In other words, the sham courses were more an adjunct to the preferential admissions program than an adjunct to the athletics department.

Your Superintendent is not surprised, however, to learn that students might be left undereducated on a diet of access-assessment-remediation-retention.