How would you like to sign up for a fake class? If you were an athlete at the University of North Carolina in recent years, this might have been a possibility.

On Wednesday, Oct. 22, a university report revealed a scheme during the decade prior to 2009 to keep athletes academically afloat. According to The New York Times, the academic counselors held a meeting with the university’s football coaches, asserting that the classes “had played a large role in keeping underprepared and/or unmotivated players eligible to play.” The presentation described the students’ interaction with these classes: “They didn’t go to class … they didn’t have to stay awake … they didn’t have to pay attention.” 

Thankfully, these classes no longer exist, though they let student athletes slide by for nearly a decade. The aforementioned New York Times article mentions that “more than 3,100 students, 47.6 percent of them athletes, were enrolled in and received credit for the phantom classes, most of which were created and graded solely by a single employee, Deborah Crowder.” According to last Wednesday’s report, fall 2009 was the first semester without Crowder’s bogus classes and saw the football team’s lowest GPA, 2.121, in a decade.

The university can’t let culpable athletes and academic personnel off the hook. Consequences must follow such irresponsible, unacceptable and dishonest behavior. Like the University of Miami and Penn State University in recent years, the NCAA should impose decisive penalties on the University of North Carolina. Since football and basketball players were both involved in the scandal, both sports teams should suffer punishments. The Tar Heels football team should lose bowl eligibility, and its basketball teams should be banned from NCAA Tournament participation indefinitely. To be fair to innocent athletes, players should be allowed to transfer without penalty of missing a year of play.

Additionally, the university should reduce scholarships for both sports. 

These measures come across as harsh — that’s because they are. It is time that universities are held accountable for the disservice they not only impose upon non-athletes, but, more importantly, the disservice to the athletes. 

In the long run, holding athletes to a lower standard is harmful. A diminutive number of student athletes actually go on to play professionally — much fewer last when they get there. Giving them a false sense of invincibility is a dangerous game. 

For instance, over the past year, news organizations such as The New York Times and Fox Sports have exposed ongoing cover-ups of athletes’ illegal activities, such as attempted homicide, sexual assault, burglary and, as a nice touch, crab leg stealing. Few perpetrators faced significant consequences for these actions, most likely because of their athletic prominence. 

A university’s role is to foster intellectual, social and personal development of its students. North Carolina’s fake classes is just one example of corruption that saturates revenue-drawing collegiate sports. Although common sense suggests other schools have partaken in wrongdoing, North Carolina was caught and should face the utmost consequences. Those who respect dignity and integrity must send a message to all institutions of higher learning that such dishonor cannot and will not be tolerated. 

The time for reform is now, and it is our responsibility, especially as college students, to work toward it.