Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom has been hired to represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in litigation, accreditation and regulatory matters resulting from a 2014 report detailing widespread instances of academic fraud involving thousands of students, many of whom were athletes.
The report, which resulted from an eight-month investigation headed by Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft’s white-collar defense and investigations group chairman, Kenneth Wainstein, revealed that over 3,100 students took so-called paper classes, which were not taught by a professor and only required students to write one essay to receive class credit. These classes, where students often got high grades despite poor-quality work, were popular among athletes who had to meet eligibility requirements in order to continue to participate on college teams, the report said.
