Jan 01, 2014 12:02 PM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

One month after Julius Nayang'oro's indictment on academic fraud charges, more details have spilled out on his AFAM 280 course at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill.

According to the New York Times, 19 undergraduates signed up for the course, took place in the fall 2011 semester. AFAM 280 was known as "Blacks in North Carolina" and the school's Department of African and Afro-American chairman, Nyang'oro, taught it.

Of those 19 undergraduates, 18 played for the UNC Tar Heels football team and the other was a former player. Each of their academic advisers reportedly directed their attention to the course so they could maintain their grades and stay on the team.

UNC Chapel Hill is regarded for an exceptional athletic department and equally challenging academic standards. Those standards were met, by all appearances.

However, the class never met, law enforcement officials told the NYT. The students still received grades for papers and assignments they never did. School officials also said they believe AFAM 280 was one of at least a dozen courses that met sparsely or not all.

For teaching the course, the school paid Nayang'oro $12,000.

Last month, Nayang'oro was indicted for a felony charge of "obtaining property by false pretenses," the News and Observer reported.

In a separate investigation, the NYT reported, James G. Martin, North Carolina's former governor, found 560 unauthorized grade changes, mostly with forged faculty signatures and, most troublingly of all, dating back to 1997.

Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall told the NO the payment is what resulted in Nayang'oro's arrest and indictment. For one of the longest running academic scandals the state has ever seen, Nayang'oro likely may not even see a jail cell. The max punishment he could face is 30 months in prison, but Woodall said these cases end up with probation far more often, even with a conviction.

Some UNC faculty members, like history professor Jay Smith, are not pleased with the school's handling of the matter.

"It seems so incredibly anticlimactic to me, because we've known about this particular situation for what, a year and a half now," he said. "And this SBI inquiry has been going on for that entire time, and this is all they have? I'm just not quite sure what to think of it."

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