When I first moved to Raleigh in 1999, I often heard comments to the effect that the University of North Carolina system was the state’s “crown jewel.” Almost everyone bought that idea.

Fifteen years later, however, if you said that, you’d probably get a laugh. The UNC system has been a breeding ground for scandals in recent years. In today’s Pope Center Clarion Call, Jay Schalin recounts quite a few of them and concludes that they indicate “a sickness in the soul.”

Central to this problem is the fact that there isn’t much independent scrutiny of the system. Much like the old Soviet Union, information is tightly controlled by those in power. Among Jay’s suggestions for breaking the system’s stranglehold on information is for the Board of Governors to have its own executive director, someone not answerable to the system. It would also help if the alumni associations stopped acting like lapdogs and started taking an interest in the academic integrity of their schools.