Death threats and denial for woman who showed college athletes struggle to read

[martyfan]

The death threats, Mary Willingham expected.

More shocking is that the University of North Carolina is now disavowing her research as a whistle-blower -- research that showed between 8% and 10% of the school's football and basketball players are reading below a third-grade level.UNC issued a statement Wednesday night saying it did not believe

Comments

[nesmith]

Seems that's she's broken the Commandment Thou Shalt Never Criticize The Holy Sports Industrial Complex.

[lovedforaday]

it's sad that it's unsurprising she's getting threats.

it's probably time to drop the pretense that elite football and men's basketball players are at these universities to get an education and start paying them. it be nice if they were given an education and paid, but i doubt the schools are interested in doing either.

[gambitia]

Seriously.

I love football, but god do I hate the NFL. ffs stop pretending that elite college and high school teams are anything other than a farm for new players.

[etherealtsuki]

I don't think anyone really think differently.

[bananainpyjamas]

I don't know that the schools should pay them necessarily (since that would only further the gap between the big-time programs and the rest), but at the very least they should be allowed to make money through endorsements and stuff like that. It's ridiculous that the school can make tons of money selling merchandise with their faces on it but the athletes can't, say, do a ad for a local shop or restaurant.

But yeah, nobody believes that the top-10 HS basketball prospect that's practically a guaranteed lottery pick in the NBA draft gives a shit about classes.

[meadowphoenix]

Well, UNC did see her data, which they later admitted when faced with the emails about it, and her data is in fact linked at the source. How else should she share it?

[strandedinaber]

I would imagine that she probably is trying to get it published. But with this kind of data it's pretty unusual to wait the year or more to go through peer reviewing, editing, waiting for it to be released. And then it would likely be embargoed and so inaccessible to most folks.

I agree that it would be interesting to see the raw data, though, but if she's gathered it from the university then ownership lies with them, not her, and I can't see them agreeing to release it...

[squidger]

And, more evidence of the Internet's and society's extreme hostility to women.

I only did a quick google search, so I could be wrong, but when Louis Freeh released his report on Penn State, while he got loads of criticism, there wasn't any threatened violence against him.

[moonshaz]

I guess a woman criticizing something that is a male stronghold is just that much MORE offensive to the misogynists out there. D-:

[ayajedi]

I can believe it