Coaching the Mind or Minding the Coach?
Bradley Bethel is a learning specialist for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), assisting in the educational needs of student-athletes in his position on UNC's Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes (ASPSA). His field is education and his job is to help college student-athletes with their learning and reading/writing skills in order to maintain progress through the undergraduate curriculum toward a degree and graduation. He publishes his personal opinions on the topic at "Coaching the Mind."
Me? I'm a Systems Engineer, educated in Electrical Engineering, Project Management and Operations Analysis. My expertise is in Command & Control and Communications systems. Other than a brief assignment as an Electronic Warfare instructor, I'm not an educator. I am not equipped to evaluate Bradley's expertise in his field, nor do I pretend to surmise his character, personality or biases strictly from his online publications.
I do, however, find myself taking a contrarian position to many of opinions and conclusions in the UNC academic scandal involving athletes; enough so that I created "Minding the Coach" as a cathartic exercise in expressing counterpoint to his publishings at "Coaching the Mind," even if I'm just posting words lost in the void. My audience is probably 1/10th of his, if that. And that's fine. I publish this for myself and not to rally any forces. If anyone pays attention, great. If not, at least I feel better
My blog title represents my perception that Mr. Bethel does not articulate a healthy enough level of skepticism of the athletic program's motives being responsible, in part, for an erosion of the primacy of academics for student-athletes. To the contrary, he has doggedly defended the UNC athletic department's lack of culpability in the scandal, even to the point of disbelieving that the scheme, if not actually generated for the purpose, was ultimately exploited to maintain athlete eligibility.
Mr. Bethel is not an official spokesman for the UNC administration, nor for the Academic Support Program for Student Athletes (ASPSA), the department at UNC within which he works. He claims his opinions are his own. He does, however, sound a chord for many UNC advocates who feel he articulates a refreshing voice representing those who feel UNC is being lynched in the court of public opinion due to sensationalist media and the feeding frenzy by "Anybody But Carolina" haters who won't be sated until UNC is razed, crippled and humiliated. Bethel is championed for his criticisms of UNC's detractors and for his harsh critique of those within UNC's circle who abide or engage in what he considers defamatory, false or misleading complaints against the University, it's leadership, it's reputation and the good name of people being unfairly maligned. He is very protective of the ASPSA staff and the athletic department it supports, but he is most protective of the student-athletes, unless they should become one of those detractors mentioned earlier.
I don't disagree with Bradley on everything. He does make some valid and sound points in the course of his arguments, at least in my estimation. Others who are antagonistic to any defensive posture that supports and defends UNC on the matter of this scandal, I know, are not so accommodating. Where I do find in agreement with Bradley, though, it's typically on a supplemental, peripheral argument or minor that, in the scheme of things, misses the forest for the trees.
Protecting Privacy or Protecting Scandal?
One grove of trees that he has fixated on is the ethical issue of an employee of the University improperly accessing, holding, referencing and releasing private student educational record data. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) has figured prominently in the ongoing saga of the UNC scandal, both in the context of UNC releasing information and in how it has affected (or not affected, as the case may be) Mary Willingham's handling of privacy-protected information.
FERPA is often misunderstood. Remember: I'm an engineer; not a lawyer or Department of Education (ED) expert. With a little study, the lay person can easily discover and grasp that FERPA is an administrative law that governs educational institutions. Individuals, such as employees, are not prosecuted for FERPA violations. Institutions are. The consequence of a FERPA violation is the risk of the Institution losing federal funding. The ramification for the employee(s) deemed responsible for the violation, on the other hand, is possible administrative, disciplinary action imposed by the impacted Institution itself. The ED doesn't impose sanctions on the individual. Neither is the individual subject to criminal prosecution or civil action under FERPA, contrary to common misconception.
The risk of penalty only arises if a complaint is filed by the party whose educational records were not protected. A third party cannot file a complaint. If no complaint is made, there is no investigation and no federal action. When UNC experienced a leak of Julius Peppers' transcript data, it could have exposed the University to a FERPA violation. But there was no violation because (I'm assuming) Julius Peppers never filed a complaint.
The University, like so many other institutions probed for athletic-related scandal, has exploited FERPA to prevent or stall disclosure of public information; abusing and misapplying the protections for which even the original author has said it was not intended. It might surprise most that in the nearly 40 years since its passage, not a single institution has been subjected to the penalty of violating FERPA. Reported complaints have been resolved by corrective action at the university. So this alleged fear by UNC of a FERPA violation is overwrought. It's a human shield of sorts, exploited to obstruct information discovery.
Getting back to Mary Willingham and her alleged "violations of FERPA." While she was a counselor for student-athletes, Willingham had legitimate access to their academic portfolios. When she voluntarily left that position in January of 2010, she should no longer have had access to the academic records of student athletes. She certainly shouldn't have been releasing such records to third parties such as media or reporters, or citing data from them in personal messages, publications or social media. For the 3+ years after her resignation from ASPSA and while still an employee of UNC, she could have been subject to disciplinary action if UNC had determined that she had improper access to or possession of privacy-protected data. It is obvious and unquestioned, now, that she did, putting UNC at risk of violating FERPA were one of those who's data she held complained. Though Willingham had a responsibility to UNC to adhere to privacy rules and policies, the onus of FERPA was on UNC to install restrictions on her access to privacy-protected records once her need to access was no more.
It's now been made clear that Willingham's analysis and study of Learning Deficiencies and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in revenue sport student athletes was based on identifiable student-athlete test data, admissions test scores and tracking of academic progress using identifiable student academic data . It was her claim of findings, based on these data and records, that served as the foundation for her incendiary claims of low literacy among a particular segment of UNC student athletes. We'll see in a moment that Bethel, himself, recognized early on -- well before Willingham had become a national celebrity in her very public battle with the UNC administration -- that she was utilizing and accessing educational records of students from which she should have been restricted post-January 2010.
Ethics Violator or Conscientious Whistleblower?
It is now clear, if it wasn't already, that it was Mary Willingham who was the Raleigh News & Observer's unidentified source in August 2011 that had provided reporter Dan Kane a copy of Marvin Williams' partial transcript, showing his having taken a 400-level course prior to taking a remedial English writing course; a course required by UNC of all students who are admitted with admissions tests score in verbal/writing tests below a given threshold admission test scores. Ignoring for the moment the peculiarity of any student enrolling in and successfully passing a 400-level course before even starting his Freshman year, the release of education transcript definitely represented an indisputable breach of student educational records.
Mr. Bethel arrived at Chapel Hill for the Fall 2011 academic semester, and in one of his blog articles he described viewing Mary Willingham's and her partner Dr. Lyn Johnson's "poster board" presentation at the College Sports Research Institute (CSRI) symposium hosted by UNC-Chapel Hill on April 18th, 2013. Their report presented information on the frequency of LD/ADHD in revenue sport student athletes, and Bethel noted that the study cited aggregate Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) figures, of which he also noticed should have been out of the reach of Willingham, who by now was no longer a student-athlete advisory. He doesn't say so explicitly, but his own account makes no reference to concern or interest in the research findings that Willingham and Johnson were presenting, but rather a keen focus on the suspected ethical breach of Willingham access to and use of that protected data. He says he was not alone regarding that concern. Unnamed "colleagues" were also alarmed by the breach of privacy.
In the same blog, he says he and those colleagues reported it to his superiors. Coincidentally, about a month later, Dr. Johnson failed to have her contract with UNC renewed. Also, coincidentally, during the same timeframe, Willingham claims she received her first negative performance review, was demoted from her position of assistant directorship position in UNC's Center for Student Success and Academic Counseling (CSSAC) and had her office moved to a basement location. No one has publicly tied those two events (Mary's demotion and Johnson's no-contract ) to any alleged educational records violations. The University's actions are the subject of a pending employment suit complaint filed by Willingham, and neither Willingham nor Johnson has spoken specifically about any explanation offered. News & Observer's Dan Kane article above suggested a possible link between the University's actions and Willingham's reporting of derogatory literacy findings among for-profit sport student athletes, but in the above-referenced blog, Bethel suggests the administration's actions gave him some sense that his and his colleagues' privacy breach complaint had, in fact, been taken seriously.
Ethics regarding handling of privacy-protected educational records has been a regular theme for Mr. Bethel. Willingham misled the Institutional Review Board (IRB), declaring that she wasn't using identifiable student information. She used social media to allege academic claims that were easily able to be narrowed down to a small, specific group of student-athletes. She allowed exposure of protected academic materials to reporters at HBO, ESPN's Over The Line (OTL) and, of course, to the N&O. Even after resigning from UNC, she continued to demonstrate she was in possession of and willing to share transcript information of former student-athletes without their consent.
These are all legitimate and sound complaints, I think, presented by Mr. Bethel; but, unless and until impacted individuals file a complaint, then it is no more of a "violation" than there was with UNC's leaking of the Peppers' transcript. He can take umbrage at her scofflaw ways, but it doesn't have bearing on the validity or credibility of what it exposes, any more so than Snowden's illegal and likely treasonous leaking of national security documents would reveal potentially illegal, unconstitutional activities by US government national security and intelligence agencies. The ethics/legality of the action are distinct and separate from what that action reveals. This is not a court of law with evidentiary rules restricted "fruit from the poisoned tree."
Privacy Rights or Exposing Fraud?
My observation is that Mr. Bethel has paid exaggerated attention to and offered lengthy criticism of Willingham's ethics as a rationale to argue that what her "unethically acquired" information revealed is discredited. But disparaging the character, motives or practices of the "whistleblower" -- and I use quotation marks there intentionally to appease the sticklers -- doesn't diminish the validity of what that person has revealed. When the cat gets out of the bag, it's still a cat whether the one letting it out of the bag should have done so or not.
I'm bothered by Mr. Bethel's angry fixation on Willingham's character. It's fine if he doesn't like, respect or admire her, based on what he feels are motives to profit off the scandal or hurt the University he's adopted and it's students, alumni and advocates. But his criticism of Willingham on a personal level has overshadowed and blinded him to the forest. Willingham could be the most devious, manipulative and villainous person in the world, and it still doesn't change the fact that something was rotten in Chapel Hill; and Bethel -- someone who is supposed to be dedicated to educational excellence, free of athletic pressure to dilute that excellence -- won't seem to acknowledge the rot that had been occurring, mostly prior to his arrival in Chapel Hill. He'd undoubtedly call my use of "rot" an exaggeration and any characterization of the scandal as such"sensationalized" if depicted as anything more than a limited -- and corrected -- anomaly, perpetrated mainly by faculty with no proven athletic department culpability. But I think Bethel uses the "trees" of privacy and ethics concerns to avert attention from the "forest" of athletic department's and ASPSA's culpability for the scandal.
