Some years ago, Pres. Lois DeFleur at the State University of New York at Binghamton led the way in pressing its athletics program to join the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division I, which The New York Times says “can have a win-at-all cost attitude.”

Last week the Times reported that several of the students recruited by Binghamton “had histories of academic or legal problems and that three players had been arrested, one of whom fled the country while on bail.”

Citing further Times and other coverage, Inside Higher Ed digs deeper into this scandal:

A widely read article in The New York Times . . . criticized Kevin Broadus, Binghamton head basketball coach, as being “known for recruiting good players with questionable backgrounds.” (Broadus was an assistant coach at Georgetown University and helped recruit a number of academically underprepared players, including one from an acknowledged high school diploma mill.) The Times article also included the comments of faculty members concerned that the institution had lowered its admissions standards for athletes in recent years.
The Binghamton situation burst back into public view two weeks ago, when . . . one of Broadus’s troubled recruits, was arrested for dealing cocaine and dismissed from the team. Following the high-profile arrest, Sally Dear, an adjunct professor who told The New York Times last winter that Binghamton’s athletics department pressured her to compromise her grading system to help failing basketball players, lost her position at the institution. Dear believes her dismissal was retaliatory in nature and told The Times, “I’m being fired for being ethical.” . . . [Later, Dear stated] that other faculty members had been approached to change grades but were afraid to speak for fear of being fired.

Thereafter, with no explanation given by Binghamton’s administration, several more players with problems in their pasts, including some of the team’s top scorers, were cut from the roster.

The SUNY Board of Trustees, which at first left the investigation of this troubling affair in the hands of President DeFleur, seems to have had second thoughts. Nancy L. Zimpher, chancellor of the SUNY system, has now announced that the system would oversee an independent audit of Binghamton’s basketball program, rather than allow DeFleur to complete the inquiry herself. (According to the Times, Binghamton’s administration had provided “only the sketchiest account of what the investigation might have entailed”; moreover, Professor Dear told the Times, the administration never interviewed her.)

The SUNY board (on which I served for twelve years) must see that an independent, reliable inquiry into this affair takes place, and it must ensure that athletes recruited to SUNY campuses are of good character, prepared for college studies, and graded on a par with other students. The board must also stand foursquare behind professors with the integrity and courage to come forward in matters such as these.