CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s top academic officer says reading specialist Mary Willingham’s findings on athlete literacy levels are flawed, though she stands firm that her research is “100 percent correct.”
In a meeting of the school’s faculty council Friday, provost James W. Dean Jr. said there is “absolutely no basis whatsoever in the dataset to make any claim about the literacy of our student-athletes.”
In an email to The Associated Press, Willingham said she had worked with “the overwhelming majority” of the students in the data set on reading and writing skills between 2004 and 2010.
The school has stopped Willingham’s research until she receives approval from a review board due to privacy concerns. Willingham said she is scheduled to go before the board next week.
