University Southern California Trojans
USC Placed On Probation, Financial Aid Awards Reduced
August 23, 2001 | USC Athletics
Aug. 23, 2001
INDIANAPOLIS - The University of Southern California will begin two years of probation today (Aug. 23) and will have scholarships in football and women's swimming and diving reduced as the result of findings by the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions. The findings are academic fraud, providing false and misleading information, and a lack of institutional monitoring.
There were also allegations of significant recruiting violations in the men's basketball program involving an assistant coach, but the committee agreed with the university's findings that no violations were committed.
The academic fraud violations included three separate instances over a two-year period from the summer of 1996 to the spring of 1998. During that period of time, employees of the university's Student Athlete Academic Services (SAAS) substantially composed academic papers for three student-athletes. In addition, the tutors involved in the fraud misrepresented their role in preparing the papers.
In all three instances - one in the summer of 1996, one in the fall of 1997 and one in the spring of 1998 - a tutor was asked by an assistant coach or a student-athlete to assist in preparing a paper for specific class assignments. The tutors worked with the student-athletes a number of hours, helped them conduct research, and typed and composed significant portions of the papers. The student-athletes submitted the papers as their own work for academic credit.
The student-athlete involved in the summer 1996 violation was a football player who was assisted by a tutor coordinator for a paper in a political science class. After the paper was submitted, the football student-athlete received an A- for the course.
In the case of the 1997 violation, a women's diving student-athlete presented a rough draft of a paper for a writing class in the handwriting of a tutor and submitted the final paper in her own handwriting. The course professor detected the fraud and awarded an F to the student-athlete for the course.
Another football student-athlete was involved in the 1998 instance, involving a paper for a religion course. The student-athlete submitted the fraudulent paper and was awarded a C in the class.
In all three cases, the tutor coordinator or tutors provided false and misleading information to the university or was unwilling to be interviewed. The committee also found that the institution failed to properly monitor the administration of the institution's SAAS program.
Specifically, the committee found that the institution failed to:
Although the institution argued that the three separate and isolated cases would not have been automatically detected by routine monitoring, the committee noted that it was troubled that three different tutors over a three-year period engaged in clear violations of institutional academic fraud guidelines.
The Committee on Infractions considered the following corrective actions taken by the university relative to its athletics program:
The committee agreed with and approved of the actions taken by the university, but it imposed additional penalties because of the serious nature of the violations in the case, including academic fraud and a failure to monitor. The additional penalties are:
As required by NCAA legislation for any institution involved in a major infractions case, Southern California is subject to the NCAA's repeat-violator provisions for a five-year period beginning on the effective date of the penalties in this case, August 23, 2001.
The members of the Division I Committee on Infractions who heard this case are: Jack Friedenthal, committee chair and professor of law, George Washington University, Gene A. Marsh, professor of law, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Andrea Myers, director of athletics at Indiana State University, James Park Jr., attorney and retired judge, Frost Brown Todd LLC, Lexington, Kentucky, Josephine Potuto, professor of law, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and Thomas E. Yeager, commissioner, Colonial Athletic Association.
Statement from Mike Diamond, Executive Vice Provost, University of Southern California
This case involves three separate and unrelated incidents of improper assistance to student-athletes in the Student Athlete Academic Services (SAAS) program, which occurred over a two year period from summer 1996 to spring 1998. We self-reported these incidents to the PAC-10 and the NCAA after conducting an extensive review of SAAS. Today's announcement by the NCAA of limited probation and limited reductions in scholarships brings closure to this unfortunate episode.
Although the three instances uncovered by USC reflect a tiny fraction of the academic assignments completed by USC student-athletes over the period covered by this review, even a single instance of improper assistance for a student-athlete is too many. We do not tolerate cheating at USC, and this case should signal our seriousness and our determination to root out those who do. The individuals implicated are no longer employed by USC.
For the past year-and-a-half, the provost's office and the director of athletics have shared responsibility for oversight for the SAAS program. The SAAS staff is responsible for fulfilling the requirements of the NCAA to provide academic support to student-athletes. SAAS has been completely reorganized, the staff has been significantly expanded, and the training responsibility for tutors has been transferred to the USC Learning Center. The entire program is monitored regularly, and randomly spot-checked.
