The academic scandal at the University of North Carolina (UNC) - Chapel Hill is deepening still, as two former student-athletes have filed a lawsuit against the school and the NCAA.
According to the Associated Press, the suit names former Tar Heel women's basketball player Rashanda McCants and football player Devon Ramsay as complainants. The lawsuit is the second one filed in the academic scandal involving false classes at UNC for some two decades.
Whereas the first, filed by former football player Michael McAdoo, named just UNC as a defendant, this one also included the NCAA. McCants and Ramsay are seeking class-action certification for their lawsuit and is being handled by Michael Hausfeld, the attorney who led Ed O'Bannon's class-action lawsuit against the NCAA over student-athlete compensation.
McCants' brother Rashad played basketball for the men's UNC basketball team and has been outspoken about the academic scandal. He told ESPN's "Outside the Lines" he took these false classes and said athletic department personnel knew about them.
Neither UNC nor the NCAA responded to the AP's request for comment.
UNC released the results of a groundbreaking investigation that found the school's administration was negligent to the false classes for about 20 years. The classes were mostly taken by student-athletes who were steered toward them by academic advisers.
"Instead, the NCAA sat idly by, permitting big-time college sports programs to operate as diploma mills that compromise educational opportunities and the future job prospects of student-athletes for the sake of wins and revenues," reads the lawsuit.
In the fallout of this scandal, the NCAA has apparently toughened up on academic fraud and recently confirmed to the Chronicle of Higher Education its enforcement department is investigating 20 schools for that reason.
"This lawsuit deals with the past, present and future of college academics," Hausfeld told Reuters. "It cuts beyond North Carolina to all sports at Division I institutions. Both genders."
