The NCAA has announced that it won’t take any action against the University of North Carolina for its decades-long scandal of fake courses for star athletes. How did the university manage to escape getting even a slap on the wrist?

As Shannon Watkins explains in a new Martin Center essay, the NCAA chose to take a pass because it wasn’t only athletes who benefited from this. What a loophole for all other schools driven to win at any cost — make sure that news about bogus courses leaks out so any student can get the “benefit” of an easy A!

That technicality, however, shouldn’t have ended the case. Watkins explains:

But that technicality is irrelevant to the major issue at hand. When the NCAA initiated a three-year long investigation, the accusation it leveled against UNC was not that of academic fraud per se; rather, it was investigating whether or not the university administered special favors to student-athletes to help them earn good grades and maintain athletic eligibility. And there is a significant amount of evidence that suggests student-athletes were purposely funneled through the fraudulent courses at the heart of the investigation.

Not only did the NCAA show that it can’t be serious when a member that’s Too Big to Punish gets caught, so did UNC’s accrediting body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Proving that the accreditation system is a joke, SACS (which despite its periodic investigations of the institutions it supposedly oversees never found anything amiss at UNC) is also content to sweep the matter under the rug.

A big aspect of the problem at UNC is the fact that the university system’s minimum academic standards can be waived for players who are badly wanted for football and basketball. The UNC System has cut-off lines for SAT and ACT scores that are meant to keep the most woefully under-prepared students from entering even the weakest of the system’s institutions. But, Watkins writes, “It is difficult to imagine an athlete who fails to meet the system’s minimal standards keeping up academically in a course designed for Chapel Hill students. Yet, student athletes who do not meet any of the minimal requirements may still gain admission if the faculty Committee on Special Talent, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, and the Chancellor approve the decision.”

Did UNC give special favors to its star players? Of course it did, and is going to keep on doing so — but will be more careful in the future.

Watkins concludes, “If the NCAA and the accrediting agencies continue to help sweep the corruption of their constituent institutions under the rug, then what is their purpose for existing?” Good question.