A few items of discussion:

Media are finally suing UNC-Chapel Hill after months of being stonewalled in their pursuit of the truth in the football scandal and its two prongs of academic fraud and athletic corruption. We’ll see what happens. The university has certainly given little to no indication that their concern extends beyond results on the football field this season.

As discussed here two days ago, when Duke University’s starting QB was caught plagiarizing, he was suspended (contra to the dictates of the Carolina Way) for the entire season. The blog State Fans Nation (which obviously has no vested interest in the success of UNC-CH athletics) has found other big-time universities making the tough choice to punish athletes who cheat in the classroom, including Michigan State, Maryland, and Syracuse.

It could very well be that pressure from within the university, and not without, is what cleanses it of its tail-wagging-the-dog overprioritization of athletics. Blogger/columnist/humorist/all-’round great guy BobLeeSays (who does have a vested, but not disproportionate, interest in the success of UNC-CH athletics) took note of a comment in last Sunday’s News & Observer by an “uncleron,” whose identity BLS says he knows: “a native North Carolinian ….. a former Morehead Scholar ….. a long time Kenan season ticket-holder w/ 4 on the 50 ….. a prominent member of the Triangle-area business community, he moves and shakes in the same circles as BOTBob’s CYA Gang. Like yours truly, he does not claim to speak for any one other than himself; but chances are he probably does.”

Among other things, and after declaring his love for football and UNC-CH, he concludes:

Where are the defenders of the University in all of this? When will some adult stop and consider the hypocrisy and greed involved. The University, the Board of Governors and the Legislature have all been such a comfortable little clique for so long. The Romans distracted their citizens from the corruption of their leaders by providing them spectacles.

Sell off the facilities and pay the players, but take the logos of the Universities away if you want to maintain the fiction of academic integrity, or does that matter any more?

Finally, the athletics director, Dick Baddour, has sent a letter to the Florida-based jeweler involved in giving football players “impermissible gifts” — he’s to stay away from UNC athletes for five whole years.